


Pranks and Pups!

by RandyKorn



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alive Noah, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, OT6, can y'all believe this is the first Ronan&Blue&Henry fic, gratuitous fluff, no beta we die like men, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25174012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandyKorn/pseuds/RandyKorn
Summary: The end of winter break rolls around, and Ronan finds himself stuck in a depressive episode despite the miracle of having his friends all together once again. Blue and Henry bully him into a Platonic Date Night Extraordinaire (which isn’t so platonic on Henry’s part). There’s gelato, misdemeanors, dog piles, a duck, dance parties, and even a car chase - everything necessary to force one Ronan Lynch into admitting that he’s just as deserving of love and care as the rest of them.
Relationships: Adam Parrish/Blue Sargent/Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Noah Czerny, Henry Cheng/Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny/Richard Gansey III/Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish/Blue Sargent/Henry Cheng, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent & Henry Cheng, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46
Collections: TRC Big Bang 2020





	Pranks and Pups!

**Author's Note:**

> Was this fic an excuse to stare at hundreds of pictures of dogs on Google while writing (several) self-indulgent rarepairs? Yes, yes it was.
> 
> Shoutout to Syd, my artist for the event! You can find her over at Instagram @manao.ri
> 
> Her beautiful artwork can be found right here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CCcSoBGFnCq/?igshid=lyu8qgnfzt3a

Ronan ignored the incessant knocking at the door, wondering when Cheng would take the hint. If he hadn’t dragged himself off the couch to answer in the past four minutes, he wasn’t likely to do so anytime soon.

He shifted into a more comfortable position with a sigh, jamming the pillow over his head to try and block out the sound.

In the past few months of living at the Barns, he had managed to venture into his parents’ room exactly once - just long enough to grab their pillows and run. Somehow, he’d taken to curling up with them when he knew Adam was going to be away for a while - working, studying, away at Harvard for the first half of the semester. In his more pitiful moments, he tried to pretend that he could still smell the soft lilac of his mom, the strong sweat and leather of his dad. 

He could never fool himself for long. All that was left now was the musty smell of a home closed up for far too long.

Still, sometimes in the grey space before sleep fully overtook him, his mind played tricks on him, bringing him back to when he was five and crawling into his parents’ bed after a nightmare. For those few moments, he was wrapped in his mother’s arms, his father’s back warm and solid against Ronan’s own. For those few moments, he was safe, even from the horrors in his own head.

It was easier to deal with ghosts than the empty spaces they left behind.

“Lynch!” Cheng called, sounding ungodly chipper for someone who had probably bruised his knuckles on the hardwood by now. “I know you’re in there!”

Ronan was in there. Ronan was _always_ in there.

It was winter break, one of the only times of the year where the whole group could still gather to spend cherished time together, and Ronan couldn’t even get his ass off the couch long enough to appreciate it. They were leaving in three days - Adam back to Harvard, Noah to his family, the others to some undetermined location down south, last he’d heard. He should be glued to their sides, soaking it all in before he was left alone again.

It was one thing to know that. It was another to _feel_ it.

Because if he was going to be alone in a few days, he may as well be alone now. It would hurt less, both for him and for them. It wasn’t like they wanted him around when he was like this, slow and lost inside himself, if they wanted him around at all.

Cheng continued knocking, tapping out the chorus to _Call Me Maybe._ Ronan could hear him humming through the door.

“Oh, fuck off,” he muttered, reaching his hand above his head to grope blindly at the end table behind him. He grabbed the first solid thing he found, chucking it at the door with a satisfying _thud_ , vaguely hoping it was his cell phone. 

“Yes, throwing things at a closed door is exactly how to scare me away,” Cheng said sarcastically. “Come out and face me, you coward!”

His thoughts were mud, and every movement felt like he was dragging himself through quicksand. All he wanted to do was lay on the couch and try to forget the vast emptiness that surrounded him, to try and remember when the Barns had been filled with love and laughter instead of silence and shadows.

But Cheng wouldn’t stop knocking on the fucking door.

“I’ve got all day, you know!” Cheng yelled. “And I have no compunctions about smashing your window open when my knuckles start bleeding. With how they’re throbbing now, that should be in, oh, thirty seconds or so?”

Ronan cursed under his breath, flinging first one pillow to the ground, and then the other, kicking the crocheted blanket off his legs with a growl. He levered himself into a sitting position and pressed his hands into his face, wondering how angry Gansey would be if he beat the shit out of Cheng. 

He’d get over it. Eventually.

The pounding at the door matched the pounding in his head, and he reached over to throw one of Declan’s old textbooks at the door, groaning when the knocking continued mere seconds later.

“That sounded hefty! Does the weight of what you throw correlate to how annoyed you are? Because I can save your muscles some trouble - anything less than one Ronan Lynch scowling down at me will fail to move me from your front porch!”

“I’m gonna rip all your goddamned teeth out,” Ronan muttered, taking a second to orient himself before completing the journey to becoming fully vertical. He swayed slightly, taking a few shuffling steps to the door. “And then I’ll shove my fist so far up your ass-“

“I prefer to be taken out to dinner first,” Cheng said, gracefully slipping under Ronan’s arm as he wrenched the door open. “Ideally somewhere nice and expensive. Butter me up, buttercup.”

Ronan left the door swinging open as he dragged his hands down his face. Maybe if he gouged his eyes out, Cheng would puke and leave. 

“Get out of my house.”

“‘I’m not saying I need a sugar daddy,” Cheng said, completely ignoring Ronan as he moved around the living room in a slow, perusing circle, no doubt taking in the discarded tortilla chip bags littering the floor, the curdling glass of milk on the end table, the crumbs blanketing the couch. His pastel pink jacket was practically the only color in the room, and Ronan’s eyes latched onto the pins studded across the collar. “But I’m not completely opposed to the idea, if you’re into that sort of thing. I do require a bit of finesse, though. I like to be wooed. _Then_ we can discuss shoving things up my ass.”

“For fuck’s sake-“

“Exactly,” Cheng said, nodding sagely. “The sake of fucking. I’m trying to give you tips, Ronana Banana. Do try and keep up.”

“We’re not dating,” Ronan growled, turning to close the door so Henry couldn’t see how his cheeks were heating up. He shouldn’t be here, seeing the Barns like this, seeing what Ronan had let it decay into. And he certainly shouldn’t be _flirting_ with him while standing in the middle of it. “And get out of my house.”

“We’re not dating _yet,_ ” Cheng corrected. “Really, we’re all a giant poly mess at this point. It’s only a matter of time.”

Cheng had a point there - they were definitely a tangled mess of unfathomable relationships, but Ronan wasn’t involved in any of that. He was with Adam, and _only_ Adam. “We’re not dating,” he repeated. “And we’re certainly not _fucking._ ”

“Don’t crush a boy’s dreams, Lynch,” Cheng said, giving him a crooked smile and batting his long eyelashes before leaning over and grabbing Ronan’s hand. “Now, c’mon. We’ve got a date tonight, and from the look - and _smell -_ of you, you haven’t showered in at least a week. Let’s go, big guy.”

It had been two. Ronan wasn’t going to mention that.

“We’re not-“

“We’re not dating,” Henry said, tugging him insistently down the hallway, “and yet we’ve got a date. Funny how that works.”

“With Adam?” Ronan asked, not allowing himself to be tugged. Considering he weighed considerably more than Henry, it wasn’t especially difficult to dig his heels into the carpet while Cheng pulled uselessly at his forearm.

“No, not with Adam. You’ve got a date with me and Blueberry. She’s in the car.”

“No, I’m not.”

Ronan jumped, spinning around so quickly that Cheng actually managed to yank him a few steps toward the bathroom.

“How the fuck-“

“Magic tree powers,” she said, waving her fingers in front of her. “And you left the door unlocked.”

“I annoyed Ronan into letting me in,” Cheng said. “You owe me five bucks.”

“You’re worth like a trillion dollars,” Blue said, looking past Ronan with a glare. “I’m not giving you any more.”

Cheng huffed quietly, and Ronan glanced back to see the pout on his face. “Five kisses?”

“We can discuss the exact terms later, after the date.”

“We’re not dating,” Ronan repeated, although at this point he knew his protests were useless. 

“And yet, we’re going on a date,” she said. Ronan glowered at her, but she seemed immune. Typical.

Cheng was a stubborn annoyance, but Sargent was a force of nature. He knew from experience that they were evenly matched in terms of willpower, but Ronan didn’t have much to spare right now. All he wanted to do was kick these two out so he could stare at the ceiling in peace.

Instead, he stared at Sargent. “You look like shit,” Ronan said, taking in her outfit. Polka-dots draped over neon fishnets, stripes crossed over ribbons, plaid peeked out from beneath artfully placed holes. He was fairly certain her shirt was held together with nothing but safety pins and God’s will.

“And you smell like it,” she shot back. “Shower time, let’s go.”

With Cheng pulling and Sargent pushing, Ronan was forced down the hallway and into the bathroom. He thought about fighting them - slugging Cheng and hefting Sargent over his shoulder, tossing them both onto the porch and barricading the door. But it just....wasn’t worth it. Ronan had no fight left in him. He dragged his feet as they maneuvered him down the hallway, practically a deadweight. Cheng was no pushover - all those years of Crew saw to that - but the maggot was freakishly stronger than she looked. Maybe it was the tree genes. Trees were strong, right?

The bathroom door shut behind him, a solid _thump_ telling him that Cheng was leaning against the other side. Ronan knew he could probably force his way out, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. 

He moved to the toilet, figuring he could at least take a piss while he was up, but stopped when he caught a glance at himself in the mirror.

He’d let his hair grow out some in the past few months - mostly because Adam had commented that he liked running his hands through it - but now it seemed unruly. Loose curls stuck up at odd angles, a mixture of intense bedhead and two weeks’ lack of care.

His gaze caught on his beard, and his stomach clenched as he reached up to scratch it. Gansey would just be jealous when he saw it, and Noah would probably want to put flowers or some shit in it, but he wondered what Adam would think of it. Did it make him look ruggedly handsome, or did it just add to his disheveled appearance?

Not that it mattered. His longer hair reminded him of his brothers - Declan’s color with Matthew’s mess - but the beard made him look so much like his father that it was like time had slipped, folding in on itself until Niall Lynch was alive and well once again. Ready to travel the world selling dangerous shit to dangerous people, dragging his whole family into the mess in the process.

Ronan’s stomach churned, and his hands itched for a razor.

“What’re you gonna do if I decide to just stay in here?” he yelled at the door.

“You gotta eat sometime, Lynch,” Henry replied.

“I’ve got snacks in here. Chips and shit.”

“Wait, really?”

“Ronan, that’s disgusting,” Blue said, and he could practically see her face scrunching up. “Why would you keep food in there?”

“Habit from Gansey’s,” he said, reaching into the cabinet under the sink to crinkle an empty bag of chips for effect. He kept wrappers under here as snacks to entice Opal into taking baths, but they didn’t need to know that. Especially since Opal had taken to staying at Fox Way for the past few weeks, since the witches said Ronan was “in a slump” and “not currently capable of caring for a dream child.” He wasn’t about to do them any favors by letting their daughter in on his secret bath-time tricks. “Sometimes I get the munchies while I’m shitting, y’know?”

“Oh, my God,” Blue said, voice muffled as she spoke to Henry. “Why do we like him, again?”

“He’s a caveman with the body of a god,” Henry said. Ronan looked at the ceiling, feeling his cheeks warm again, unspeakably glad that there was a solid oak door between them.

“Keep it in your pants, Cheng,” Blue said.

“No promises. The night is still young.”

“I hate you two,” he said, slamming the cabinet door shut.

“We love you too!” Henry replied. Ronan genuinely couldn’t tell if his sugar-sweet tone was sarcastic or genuine. “But if you don’t get your butt into that shower, I’m going to tell Gansey that you’re the one who set his favorite pair of boat shoes on fire after graduation.”

“Blue helped!”

“I stand by my choices,” Sargent said solemnly. “They’re a plague to this earth.”

“I’ve got photo evidence, and you’re conveniently the only one in those photos, Ronan,” Cheng said. His tone was so smug that Ronan could see the smirk playing across his lips. Something pleasant in him stirred, liquid fire, but he pushed it down with practiced ease.

“God, fuck, _fine,”_ he growled, turning and yanking at the knobs until scalding hot water streamed out of the shower head. He briefly played with the idea of just letting the water run without actually getting into it, just to spite them, but it seemed like a waste. He was already here, steam rising in enticing wafts, beckoning him inside. It wouldn’t be hard to just...give in.

Slowly, he peeled off his clothes.

The water washed over him, prickling at his skin with a soothing pain. He leaned into it, relishing the feeling of two weeks’ worth of grime and sweat washing off of him. The emptiness stayed, curling up in the hollow part of his chest, but it seemed slightly more manageable with the roar of water around him and two friends waiting just outside the door.

It took him three rounds to get all the grease out of his hair, and four rounds before his skin felt scrubbed so raw it was bearable. The pain was almost refreshing after a week of numbness. 

When he was done he stood under the spray, trying to form the energy to actually leave the shower. Now that he was here, warm and clean and empty, he didn’t want it to end.

But Cheng was pounding on the door, yelling that he had to pee, and Sargent was bitching about wasting the whole date in the hallway, and Ronan found himself shutting off the shower and yanking a questionably clean towel off the rack.

“Should have fucking thought of that before you shoved me in here, dumbass.”

“Oh, how the turns have tabled,” Henry wailed dramatically.

“You know there’s another bathroom upstairs,” Blue said.

“Yeah, but I’m already at this one.”

Ronan purposefully took his time shaving, making sure every inch of his beard was slathered in shaving cream before even touching the razor. Then he painstakingly ensured that each and every hair follicle was cleanly sheared off until his chin was as smooth as Gansey’s. If Henry started clawing at the door and whimpering pathetically about his bladder bursting and his kidneys failing, well, that was only a bonus.

He pulled at a lock of his hair, still curly despite being damp, and briefly considered taking the time to trim it just to make Cheng suffer. Then he imagined him peeing in the hallway out of pure spite and reconsidered.

Besides, he kind of liked how he looked, now that the beard was gone. Now that he didn’t look like a shadow of his father.

Maybe he’d get an undercut this summer. Or a mohawk. Adam would get a laugh out of that, probably.

He picked up his shirt from where it lay crumpled on top of the toilet, holding it delicately between two fingers. Had he really been wearing this thing? Maybe it was just because he smelled of lilacs and aftershave now, but his pajamas suddenly _reeked,_ and it was painfully obvious that he’d been wearing them for two weeks straight. Everything he had just scrubbed off his skin had soaked into his clothes, and they were rumpled to the point of no return. He had half a mind to just toss them in the trash, even if he would get an earful from Adam about it.

“If you two get me something decent to wear, I’ll let Henry have the toilet.”

“Oh, God, yes,” Henry said. Ronan could hear wood creak under his weight a second later as he rocketed upstairs, followed by the familiar _thud_ of someone slipping on the mat and slamming into the wall.

“Something _decent!”_ he yelled at the ceiling. “Sargent, don’t let him do me dirty on this.”

“He’s been wanting to dress you up for months,” Blue said. “Even I can’t help you now.”

Ronan sighed as he sat on the toilet lid to wait, towel wrapped around his waist just in case Cheng broke the door down in his haste. It was only a moment before he was knocking like a woodpecker at the door, shoving the bundle of clothes into Ronan’s hands before pulling it shut again.

To his surprise, he actually liked the outfit. A light blue tank top underneath a charcoal grey Harvard hoodie, all pulled together with his favorite pair of ripped midnight black jeans.

He would have said Henry had done a good job if it wouldn’t have gone straight to his already inflated ego.

“I hear you just standing there, Lynch! Hurry it up!”

“You literally passed the upstairs bathroom,” he grumbled, pulling on the underwear Henry had grabbed. Ronan preferred not to think about that too much. _“Twice!”_

“I’m not thinking straight!”

“You never think straight,” Blue said, and Ronan could practically see her elbowing Henry in the side with bruising precision.

“I’m so full of pee that I can’t even enjoy a good gay joke. It’s filling up my brain! I’m gonna drown in my own piss! Ronan, come _onnnn,”_ Henry whined.

“God, fuck, fine,” he said, yanking open the door and swiveling neatly as Henry hurtled inside. Ronan found himself unceremoniously shoved out of the bathroom - much as he had been shoved into it - with the door slamming in his face an instant later.

Henry let out a long sigh of relief, and Ronan shared a suffering look with Blue.

“I don’t know how you date him,” he said.

“I don’t know how you _don’t,”_ she replied.

“It’s a point of pride at this point.”

Blue snorted. “Listen, I’ve seen the way you look at Henry. _He’s_ seen the way you look at him-“

“Hear hear!” came a joyous shout from the bathroom.

“-So just bite the proverbial bullet already.”

“The bullet is my dick,” Henry said helpfully, right before flushing the toilet.

Ronan could feel his cheeks heating, and he pointedly avoided looking away from Blue. To do that would be to admit defeat. 

“I can’t,” he said, loud enough for Henry to hear over the running water.

He wanted to elaborate, wanted to explain how _maybe_ Henry wasn’t as bad as he’d thought, how he was actually kind of cute in the right light, kind of endearing in the right situations. How maybe Ronan did occasionally think about holding his hand or kissing him - about as often as he thought about dunking him into a very ripe dumpster, which was to say fairly often. He wanted to explain how he cherished what he had with Adam, but he saw how Adam and Gansey held hands while reading aloud to each other, how Blue and Noah cuddled and kissed during movies, how Henry coaxed the whole lot of them into letting loose like the stupid teenagers they were, underneath all the magical trauma. Ronan saw all of it, and he was so overwhelmingly _jealous._ Not of anyone in particular - he’d long since come to terms with sharing Adam, as long as it was only within the group - but of all of them. Together.

He wanted that. He wanted to be a part of that.

But the truth was that he’d lain on his couch for two full weeks, hardly even getting up to go to the bathroom, let alone going out on dates. He hadn’t responded to any calls or texts. He wouldn’t have been able to, even if his phone hadn’t died days ago. If Adam hadn’t periodically swung by the Barns to ensure that Ronan hadn’t been eaten alive by his dreams, he knew he wouldn’t have seen him at all. He hadn’t seen the others since Christmas, just before his mood had spiralled. Two weeks ago? Longer? The days tended to blur together when there was nothing to distinguish one from another aside from the growing pile of trash littering the floor.

Frankly, he was a mess.

Frankly, he wasn’t even fit to date Adam, let alone everyone else.

He wanted to elaborate, wanted to explain everything to Blue and Henry, but the words stuck in his throat. There were too many, and they still weren’t enough.

He clenched his fists as he closed his eyes, not wanting to see the disappointment and confusion on Blue’s face. She wouldn’t understand. How could she? She had broken her curse, but Ronan was still stuck under his.

The door behind him opened, and Henry clapped him on the shoulder. “Then we won’t,” he said jovially. “There’s no rush, Ronan. We can wait. We’ve got all the time in the world, after all.”

It wasn’t fair, how Henry could so easily pinpoint what was wrong. _We can wait._ There hadn’t been time before, with Glendower and the Unmaker breathing down their necks. With the people they loved dying every week. Mom and Dad. Persephone. Noah and Gansey.

Ronan had somehow found the strength to reach for Adam, despite all of that. Even now, after their lives had calmed down into semi-domestic normalcy, he couldn’t bring himself to hope for anything more. He was too afraid of losing what he still had.

It wasn’t fair, how easily Henry understood him. His thoughts were often too tangled for his own head, let alone someone else’s.

He didn’t know if he should feel grateful or angry. He settled for brushing past the others to find his boots and a jacket. 

Blue raised an eyebrow. “Going somewhere?”

“I’m assuming this stupid date doesn’t end with being locked in my bathroom,” he snapped, pulling his laces tight. The living room was cleaner than it had been an hour ago, the trash all picked up and the rotting food tossed out. Ronan didn’t mention it, and neither did they. “The sooner we leave, the sooner you get the fuck out of my house.”

Henry grinned, practically blinding in the dusty light. “Operation: Woo Ronan Lynch is a go! Let the Date Night Extraordinaire begin!”

The sooner they left, the sooner this would be over, he reminded himself. The sooner his life could go back to normal.

He didn’t let himself think too hard about what he’d do when it did.

~%~%~%~

“So,” Henry said, eyeing Ronan as he slammed his spoon into his chocolate gelato repeatedly, not eating a single bite. “Not hungry?”

“Not for this shit,” he mumbled, wondering about the ramifications of dumping the entire cup on Cheng’s head. Pros: he’d let out a glorious shriek, ruin his ridiculous hair, and probably catch a cold. Cons: Gansey would be pissed, and he’d never hear the end of it from Blue.

Not worth it.

“You like gelato,” Henry said, pointing his spoon for emphasis. “I know for a fact that you come here with Noah all the time.”

“During the summer,” he said. “Not in the middle of a fucking nuclear winter.”

Ronan used to come to Chillato’s Gelato during the winter when Dad was away and Mom wanted them to stop moping around the Barns. They’d bundle up in scarves and mittens and sit at these same wooden picnic tables, shivering their asses off while bickering about Pokemon and anime. The tacky pink, green, and white color scheme hadn’t been updated since their founding in the 80’s, and while Ronan had always insisted he hated it, a part of him found the consistency comforting now.

He yearned to turn back time, to be able to sit here and hear his mother’s laugh again.

But that wasn’t any of Cheng’s fucking business, and Ronan technically wasn’t lying - he _hadn’t_ ever been here with Noah outside of summer. Noah had left for his parents’ house when everyone had left Henrietta. Everyone but him.

“It’s not my fault you refused to wear a proper coat,” Henry quipped, dragging him back to the present.

“This _is_ a proper coat,” he snapped, tugging the worn leather jacket tighter around him. Matthew had given it to him for his birthday, just after Dad died. He suspected that Declan had been involved as well, given that there was no way Matthew could afford something like this on his own, but none of the brothers ever mentioned it. It was easier, that way. “And it’s better than whatever thin piece of shit you’re wearing.”

“Besides,” Cheng continued, ignoring Ronan completely. “Wintertime is the best time, especially to eat icy foods. What better way to spend the day than to sit here shivering while you freeze from both inside and out?”

Ronan squinted suspiciously. He couldn’t tell if Henry was being sarcastic or not, and it was starting to piss him off. 

Truthfully, it wasn’t the cold that kept him from eating. It was the gnawing pit of acid in his stomach that threatened to boil over. The past was folded onto the present here, like a tackier, harsher version of Cabeswater that smelled like sugar instead of pine; the memories making loneliness coat his tongue and yearning clog his throat.

“Be nice, Henry,” Blue said, smacking him lightly on the back of his head as she sat down with her own cup of cake batter gelato. Ronan smirked, and Henry stuck his tongue out at him before turning to Blue.

“Why should I be nice?” he asked. “It’s Lynch.”

Ronan kicked him lightly under the table, but Cheng didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting.

“Because we’re the ones taking him out on a date. It stands to reason that we should at least _try_ to be nice to him. Even if he is an unrepentant asshole.”

“Hey,” Ronan protested. “I’m only an asshole to fellow assholes.”

“You’re an asshole to everyone,” Henry said. “Even your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend is one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever met.”

Henry paused, spoon halfway to his mouth. “Okay. Fair point.”

Ronan kicked him again, this time eliciting a small wince. “Only I’m allowed to call him an asshole. asshole.”

“We’re dating him too, you know,” Blue said. “You don’t have a special claim on insults.”

The world stopped. “Fuck,” Ronan said, returning his attention to stabbing his gelato. Something thick and black welled up within him, not unlike when the Unmaker had attacked him all those months ago. For just a moment, he’d forgotten that he wasn’t a part of what they all shared. For just a moment, he’d forgotten that he didn’t belong. Not truly. He stabbed the gelato again. _“Fuck.”_

Sargent and Cheng shared a look _,_ and he almost convinced himself that he didn’t care.

“Lynch is right,” Cheng said, scooping up their half-empty cups and standing in one smooth motion. Ronan resisted the urge to stab Cheng’s hand with his spoon. “It’s far too cold for gelato. Let’s move to the next phase of the night.”

“It’s four in the afternoon,” Blue said, snatching her cup back from Henry. 

“Frankly, I was expecting it to take longer to bully Lynch into being presentable,” he said, shrugging as he tossed their gelato into the trash. “My timetable had us sitting at about 9 PM right now.”

“I wasn’t _that_ bad,” Ronan mumbled.

“Yes you were, dear,” Cheng said. Ronan threw his spoon at him, smirking when Henry squawked as he frantically ducked out of the way. “Just for that, your shotgun privileges are revoked for the remainder of the date.”

“You’re not driving,” Blue pointed out. “You have no right to revoke shotgun privileges.”

“Can I drive?” Ronan asked immediately.

“No,” Blue answered just as quickly.

“It would make me feel better. Happier. Whatever.”

“Nice try, but no dice.”

Ronan sighed. He wondered if he could just wrestle the maggot out of the driver’s seat when it came time to leave, but he doubted it. She’d probably bite him, and it just wasn’t worth all that. “What exactly are your plans for the night?” he asked, wondering if knowing would make it any easier to bear.

Henry’s face lit up, and Ronan traced the jagged wood grain in the table, focusing on the rough scrape against his fingertips to avoid thinking about how damned pretty he was. 

Ronan could always punch him. That would make him less pretty.

Maybe. Bloody noses could be kind of hot, on the right people.

“Phase One!” Henry announced just as Ronan’s hand tightened into a fist. “Pampering. I wanted to drag you to a spa for the full experience, but Blue talked me out of it, so the shower and fresh clothes will just have to suffice.”

“I said you’d sick Chainsaw on him.”

“This hair is too gorgeous to have bird shit in it,” Henry said with a decisive nod. Ronan made a mental note of that for the next time Cheng came poking around the Barns. “Phase Two: Nourishment.” He gestured at the gelato, and Ronan wondered how they were surviving on their road trip if this was their idea of proper nutrition. And that was coming from someone who had been living off of tortilla chips and beef jerky for two weeks.

“Phase Three was going to be a surprise, but because you’re being so well-behaved I guess you can know. We’re going…mini-golfing!” Blue said, smiling widely.

Ronan felt his stomach drop, but he tried not to let it show on his face. He’d been hoping for something like a movie night so he could sleep, or at the very least zone out. The idea of waddling around a put-put course in the cold, dodging screaming children and overbearing parents while Sargent and Cheng made inside jokes about their roadtrip sounded so exhausting that Ronan could feel himself melting.

“Sounds great,” he muttered.

Dad used to take them all put-putting whenever he was home from his trips. Matthew would climb all over the props and eat as many snow cones as his little stomach could hold, Ronan would try to do trick shots and end up with his golf balls in the little river that wound through the course, and Declan would be the only one actually trying to win. Mom took pictures, laughing at their antics while Niall either egged them on or actively joined them.

It had been fun.

It didn’t sound fun now.

“Phase Four was Charlottesville. A new 24 hour karaoke place opened up, and we figured it’d be fun to scream into a mic for a while. And we found an arcade nearby - an actual arcade! - and I’ve never been to one, and Henry said they probably have DDR-“

“I’m a beast at DDR,” Cheng said.

“-And then we figured we’d let you pick where to eat, even if you have no taste.”

“And then home?” Ronan asked, voice strained.

“And then Phase Five: Stargazing. Gansey recommended some good fields. He said you guys used to go back in high school.”

Long weekends spent camping on abandoned properties and empty lots along the ley line, Ronan relishing the blatant trespassing while Gansey fretted every second. It hadn’t stopped him, though. Not much had, when it came to Glendower.

The quiet nights spent rolled up in Gansey’s fancy tent, surrounded by only the sounds of crickets and the wind whispering through the trees, were some of the only nights of solid rest that either boy had that year. He could still remember waking up to Gansey’s soft breath against his throat as they unconsciously intertwined during the dead of night.

It had been just the two of them, then. Adam had just been some cute, dusty boy in his Latin class. Cheng had been a loud annoyance in the hallways. Noah had been flickering in and out of their lives without their notice. And Blue hadn’t even existed, as far as he’d known.

Ronan had been the only one who’d known how Gansey snored softly when he finally slept, his breaths catching in the back of his throat and his hands weakly grasping anything within reach. Those nights out in the forests, the fields, with only the night sky and the stars as witness, were some of Ronan’s most peaceful.

Now, the others knew the secrets to Gansey’s sleeping habits. They might know better than Ronan.

He should be angry, that they would take that knowledge from him. That privilege, that friendship, that intimacy.

But instead he was relieved.

Gansey had someone better than him, now. Four someones.

He deserved that. Ronan didn’t.

“Stargazing sounds okay,” he said tentatively.

It would be quiet, at least.

“Great!” Sargent said, standing up in a rush. “I can’t wait to show you the put-put course. My moms and I used to go there all the time when I was little, and Orla and I would try to push each other into the river. They have one hole set up like a graveyard. Your goth ass will love it.”

“I’m not goth,” he said, struggling not to sag into the sticky table at the thought of everything tonight would entail. The put-put. The karaoke. The arcade. The people, the choices, the memories. Everything pressed against him, suddenly too much.

Sargent snapped something sarcastic in response, but it was garbled noise against his ears.

Ronan could feel himself melting - his organs buzzing unpleasantly, his muscles liquifying, his skin oozing and bubbling as everything fell off his bones in thick puddles, seeping into the stained concrete at his feet.

Cheng poked his forehead. Ronan turned a listless eye toward him. Cheng frowned, running a concerned hand through Ronan’s hair before pulling it back with a small smile and a wink.

Ronan should be concerned, but again he was relieved.

Henry saw. Henry understood. Ronan wished he wasn’t grateful.

“Sargento,” Henry said, turning toward the maggot with a dramatic flair. “I think I have an idea.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” 

“Henry, your last idea ended with us wading through the memory of a swamp at midnight and almost being eaten by an ent.”

“No, my last idea ended with us meeting a _very chill_ ent who taught you how to tap into your magic tree powers. Just because the journey was unpleasant doesn’t mean the reward wasn’t worth it.”

“Gansey did look good with his clothes soaked and filthy.”

“God, yeah. He was miserable.” Henry and Blue both grew glassy-eyed and soft at the memory, and Ronan tried not to resent them for it.

“Keep your weird kinks to yourself,” he muttered.

“Never in my life, Lynch,” Henry said, grinning at him. “But back to the point - we’re scrapping everything, Bluejay. Inspiration has struck, and we must live in the moment!”

“But what about-“

“Nope! Just doesn’t vibe with me anymore.”

“This isn’t about you-“

“Exactly! This is about seizing the day! Or the evening! Whatever! The night is rife for adventure, full of possibilities, and we’d be wasteful to spend our limited time with dear Ronana Banana simply playing put-put!”

“I like put-put,” Blue muttered, letting Henry push her toward the car. She swallowed the last of her gelato and tossed it in the trash as they passed.

“We are meant for more than put-put!” Henry yelled to the sky.

“Raincheck?” Ronan said in a rare fit of charity, following behind them. He hadn’t meant to ruin her plans with his mood - it sounded like a great night, just not on _this_ night - and he couldn’t help be grateful as they fell apart around her. Or, more accurately, as they were torn apart by Henry with a sparkling smile. Who would have thought there was anyone alive who could steamroll the maggot, let alone live to tell the tale?

She glared at Ronan over the EcoPig as she yanked open the driver’s side door. Same unholy creak as the original Pig. Damn, he was good, even if that night had not been.

“Persephone’s birthday is in March,” she said, voice softening at the edges. “We’re coming back for it. Don’t ditch us.”

He hadn’t known the witches well, during their Glendower adventures. He hadn’t wanted to, and neither had they. But since then, they had grown - not _close,_ exactly, but _closer._ Food, exchanged. Magic, discussed. Goat child, watched. 

He hadn’t known the witches well, but he could still feel the absence of one of them. The hole her death had left behind.

“Okay,” he said, and got in the car.

“Adventure!” Henry yelled, diving headfirst into the backseat. “Ow.”

~%~%~%~

“Oh, you have got to be fucking me.”

“Sadly, no.”

Ronan stood just outside the EcoPig, knuckles white as he gripped the door, frantically trying to remember the counts for Gansey’s dumb breathing exercises as he chanted _don’t punch Cheng, don’t punch Cheng, don’t punch Cheng,_ in the back of his mind.

“You brought me to _school?”_

The gilded gates of Aglionby Academy blocked their path forward, the polished silver ravens threatening to take flight and tear him apart with razor-sharp beaks, screeching in Latin and oozing black from their eyes-

 _This isn’t a dream,_ he told himself harshly.

He hadn’t been back here since he’d slammed his Class Abdication forms down on Child’s desk and walked out with his head held high and his middle fingers higher. He would have been back for graduation - there was no _fucking_ way he’d miss Adam and Gansey walking across that stage, not after everything they’d been through - but Aglionby always rented out some fancy theater in DC for the occassion, so he’d braved those trecherous grounds instead.

But this wasn’t some important life event for his important people. This was just Cheng, leaning against Blue’s car in the fading light of the falling sun and gathering clouds, a mischievous glint in his eyes that Ronan found alluring, despite himself.

“School is full of all kinds of adventure,” Cheng said seriously. Blue snorted.

“Cheng,” Ronan said, eyes narrowing dangerously. “Why are we here?”

Ronan had heard about The RoboBee Incident from Gansey. Ronan wanted no part of that kind of bullshit.

“My dear Ronan,” Cheng said, placing a hand against his heart. “Don’t you trust me?”

“About as far as I can throw you.”

“With arms like those, that’s quite the distance,” he said, grinning sunnily. “Just follow me, and have a bit of faith! You’re Catholic. You’re good at that.”

“You’re not God,” Ronan snapped with no real heat.

“Sadly not. I think I would have done things a bit differently,” he said, sauntering up to the brick column beside the gate.

Ronan watched, equal parts awed and horrified, as Cheng proceeded to grab onto the brick and nimbly vault over the wall in one smooth motion, easily clearing the sharp spikes lining the top as he arched through the air and landed gracefully on Aglionby’s neatly-trimmed grass.

“What,” he said, staring at Henry’s sparkling smile from the other side of the gate, “the fuck.”

“Tonight’s new plan,” he said, smile growing from sparkling to mischievous as he spread his arms wide. “Be gay, do crimes.”

Something stirred in Ronan, and he had the uncomfortable feeling he was starting to understand exactly what Blue saw in Henry.

The maggot planted her hands on her hips and glared through the gate. Ronan subtly moved aside. “I am _not_ getting arrested for breaking and entering tonight, Henry. You know how upset Gansey was last time-”

“We’re not _breaking_ anything-” Henry said.

“ _Last_ time?” Ronan said.

“-And what are we even doing here, anyway? Don’t give me that “trust me” horseshit, either. You know I don’t fall for it - I’m not Ronan.”

“Hey.”

“We’re being gay,” Henry said, planting his hands on his hips in an exact mirror of Blue’s posture, all smiles to her scowls. “Doing crimes.”

 _“What_ crimes?”

“Climb over this wall and I’ll tell you.”

“Henry-”

“Oh, my God,” Ronan sighed, stepping forward. “Do you two ever shut up?”

“Yes,” Blue said.

“No,” Henry said.

Ronan reached up and grabbed the top of the brick column, trying to ignore both the very sharp iron spikes on either side as well as Blue’s indignant squacks as he pulled himself up and over. If his jeans gained a few more holes (and a bit of blood) during the journey, no one commented.

Cheng didn’t have a single hair out of place, the bastard.

Ronan turned back to Blue, eyebrow cocked in a silent challenge.

She scowled at them both.

Then she turned and walked away.

“Hey, Blueberry-”

She held up a hand and Henry fell silent, although Ronan could feel his sudden burst of anxiety radiating through the air as she walked farther from them. Ronan kicked at the fence as Cheng practically vibrated beside him, wondering if he wouldn’t have suggested this little adventure without the maggot’s presence. Wondering if this whole thing had started as an actual date, and Ronan was just the third wheel, brought along out of pity.

Cheng started bouncing on his toes as Blue was almost lost to the fading light, craning his neck after her.

“She’s not leaving,” Ronan snapped after a second. “She’s walking along the fence, not toward the car.”

Blue threw a finger gun back at him, and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but only because she wouldn’t see it.

“I know that,” Cheng said, grabbing the sleeve of Ronan’s jacket before setting off after her. Ronan reluctantly let himself be tugged along. “It’s just - this town, y’know? I didn’t go through the whole Glendower Mess with you guys. I will never be a part of that. I will never share those memories or that magic with you, not in the way you share it with each other. So when one of you walks away, especially in Henrietta, it feels like…” Henry threw a glance back toward Ronan, all doleful eyes and downturned lips. “It feels like I’m being left behind.”

“That’s fucking stupid,” Ronan said, feeling his stomach twist with a skewed understanding.

Henry was the one who was travelling the continental US with Gansey and Blue, the one off having magical adventures with _fucking ents,_ apparently. Henry was the one who was Harvard-bound come August, already set to share a room with Adam. Henry was the one who was catching Noah up on nearly eight years’ worth of pop culture references. Henry was the one who continually connected them all through tweets and snaps and other verbs that Ronan had only a distant hope of ever understanding. Henry was the one who would never be left behind, _could_ never be left behind, to stagnate on the same land his father had been murdered on, in the same town two of his best friends had died in, alone and adrift.

His heart ached.

Henry glanced back, and now his eyes were full of an understanding that made Ronan’s insides squirm.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Probably.”

Ronan’s attention was pulled to the other side of the fence as Blue stopped ahead, placing a hand on a tree as she turned toward them, eyebrow cocked at Ronan. His challenge: answered.

Except not really.

“Unless maggots can fly, that tree won’t be much help,” Ronan said, eying the six-foot gap between the edge of the branches and the very pointy fence.

“Oh, it will be plenty,” Blue said, as she leaned forward, her forehead resting against the bark. She closed her eyes, and Ronan felt a hum building somewhere inside of him, in the part of him that wasn’t entirely _him._

“Blue,” Henry said. A warning. His grip on Ronan’s sleeve tightened slightly. “Blue, I could just help you up, you don’t have to-”

“Be gay,” she said, a wicked grin lighting her face. Her eyes opened, and Ronan’s stomach swooped. Stark white, empty, _glowing._ “Do crimes.”

“What the fuck,” he said.

“Ents,” Henry said.

They watched as Blue’s eyes drifted closed, her smile dimming to something far softer as the tree’s branches above her creaked and groaned toward the fence, decades worth of lopsided growth occurring in the span of a minute.

Blue blinked at them, eyes her normal brown once again, and laughed, loud and free.

“Shit,” Ronan said appreciatively.

He knew what it felt like when the magic _worked,_ when the line’s motivations and your desires aligned and the dam broke open, flowing together in perfect, impossible channels and creating something that defied explanation but was yours in every sense of the word.

“Tree magic,” Blue said, grinning as she shimmied up the tree and scooted over the fence, pausing only to give the tree a pat of thanks. She dropped to the ground, and Ronan noted with some distaste that she, too, had not a hair out of place. Well, none that hadn’t been out of place from birth, anyway. “Comes in handy now that I know how to use it.”

“You’re okay?” Henry asked, letting go of Ronan’s sleeve and latching onto Sargent’s arm instead. Ronan tried not to be disappointed. “No weird side effects?” he asked, running his fingers lightly over her skin, checking for injuries. “No time slipping or fainting spells?”

“I’m good,” she said. “We’re on my ley line, and it’s strong thanks to Adam and Ronan. It gave me the energy when I asked.”

Henry sighed in relief, brushing his fingers over her shoulders before letting his hands drop. Ronan wondered if he was thinking about being left behind again, but for more morbid reasons this time.

Gansey, broken on the side of the road.

Noah, broken under the trees.

Aurora, broken in the heart of Cabeswater.

Niall, broken in the driveway.

Persephone, Jesse Dittley, _Kavinsky-_

Magic was a lot of things, but kind was not one of them.

“Ronan?”

“That was badass,” he said, blinking back to the present and holding up a hand for a high-five. Blue raised a skeptical eyebrow, but complied. The force of her responding slap made his palm sting like the bite of a thousand fire ants, the pain keeping him rooted to here, to now.

“So,” Blue said, switching her gaze to Henry. “It’s time you told me what we’re doing.”

“Being gay-”

“Henry, I will throw you back over that fence, don’t test me.”

“Can you do that? Just catapult me into the sky? How high do you think you could - okay, okay, sorry. You still have the passcode for the kennels, right? From when you used to dog walk?”

Blue’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and Ronan leaned back against the fence, wishing he had popcorn. “Why,” she said slowly, “do you need the passcode to the kennels?”

Henry grinned, and Ronan knew she had walked right into his trap. 

“Tonight,” he announced, dramatically spreading his arms, “we are orchestrating the greatest jail break this town has ever witnessed! Our target: the Aglionby Hunt Club kennels. Our mission: give every pup housed here a taste of that sweet, sweet American freedom. Our end goal: have a grand Date Night Extraordinaire and cover this manicured lawn in dog shit.”

“Henry, we are _not_ stealing all the dogs-”

“I said nothing about stealing, Bluejeans! _Freedom,_ not theft.”

“What if they run? They’re not all trained - most of them are just family pets, not actual hunting dogs. They could get hurt.”

“The school’s outer defenses remain intact,” Henry said, gesturing to the fence. “The dogs will not escape. And even if they do, RoboBee is an excellent tracker. I will personally trek into the surrounding wilds and retrieve them with squeaky toys and treats.”

Blue crossed her arms. “This is a bad idea.”

“We will play with an untold number of dogs, give them a chance to run around and have some fun, and leave Aglionby with all the cleanup. This is a _great_ idea,” Henry countered.

Ronan watched as she opened and closed her mouth, wondering how dead he’d be if he threw something in there. 

_“Why?”_ she eventually managed.

“I am a force of chaos,” Henry said, shrugging. “And I want to pet some dogs.”

“Henry-”

“I’m in,” Ronan said, cutting Blue off. She turned her glare to him, but he just shrugged at her. Immunity worked both ways. “It sounds like more fun than DDR, and I’m down with anything that’ll fuck with the school.”

“Nothing is more fun than DDR,” Henry said, mock-offended. Maybe real-offended. Ronan couldn’t tell, and he didn’t really care.

Petting a bunch of dogs sounded...nice. Easy, when everything wasn’t. Especially compared to running around playing put-put and karaoke. Especially when it doubled as messing with Aglionby.

He’d never admit it aloud, but Henry’s idea _was_ a great one.

Blue looked at him, gaze unreadable even as she read him, and he scowled at the way her eyes softened. He did not like being known, especially when it led to pity.

“Fine,” she said, turning back to Henry. “I’ll give you the code.”

Henry whooped loudly into the night, the sound echoing across the empty courtyard. Ronan wondered if his earlier anxiety was truly forgotten, or only buried beneath unrepentant enthusiasm. He wondered how often he should be wondering that.

“Onward?” Henry asked, gesturing toward the darkened campus.

“And upward,” Blue answered.

“Christ, you two are insufferable.”

“But you love us,” Henry said, buoyancy in full swing as he led the way through Aglionby, all large brick buildings and soaring white columns, now lit only by the lamps scattered along the sidewalks. He pointed out various buildings to Blue, highlighting the small, dark spaces that they could “absolutely make out in if this night takes a different turn” while making suggestive eyebrow movements in Ronan’s direction. Ronan, for his part, wondered if the chemistry lab still had all that ethanol, and just how mad he could make Declan by setting fire to his alma mater.

“That’s the aquatics center where I used to go skinny dipping with Cheng2, and that’s the building where I bared my soul to Gansey while we both had mild panic attacks in the basement, and _that’s_ where Ronan punched me in the face Sophomore year. You remember that?” Henry asked over his shoulder. Ronan grunted in confirmation. “I had a black eye for a week.”

“What did you do?” Blue asked.

Henry put a hand to his heart. “What makes you think I did anything?” Blue just raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“He asked me to sign a stupid petition,” Ronan grumbled.

“I’d asked you to sign dozens before,” Henry said. “The worst you ever did was dunk my hard work in the fountain.” Ronan could hear the question there, the desire for an explanation three years too late.

“It was just after Dad.” Ronan dug his hands into his jacket pockets, glaring at the ground. “I couldn’t handle you anymore.”

Henry made a soft noise in the back of his throat, throwing him a sad look.

He and Henry had always had _something,_ even before he wiggled his way into their group. Glances in the hallways that lasted a little too long, mixtapes exchanged through clandestine locker drops, casual flirting through veiled insults and minor property damage. Ronan hadn’t let himself think about it, about what it meant, and then he hadn’t been able to think at all.

“Can you handle me now?” Henry asked. 

His face was open with the kind of vulnerable honesty that made Ronan realize that this wasn’t Henry’s usual unrepentant flirting. Ronan felt his heart quicken as he realized that this must have been the face that Gansey saw in that priest hole, the face that he’d fallen for all those months ago. 

It was a face that was trying to understand, and trying to be understood.

It was the face that Ronan had been falling for since Freshman year.

“I’m working on it,” he said, feeling his cheeks heat at the admission.

“Take your time Ro-bro,” Henry said, putting a hand on his arm. “We’re not going anywhere.” Ronan felt warmth rush through him, equal parts gratitude and annoyance. “Now let’s go pet some dogs!”

The kennel was a large, two-story building on the far edge of campus, with a big fenced in yard separate from the rest of the grounds for the dogs to play (and poop) in. The eastern gates were nearby, with miles of running trails through the woods for longer treks with their owners (or Blue).

Ronan peeked in through the windows, curious despite himself. In all his years at Aglionby, he’d never been to the kennel. He’d never had a reason. Even if he hadn’t been a commuter, Lynches trafficked in cows and chickens, not house pets.

He couldn’t see anything aside from his own reflection.

“Henry, I am _not_ giving you the code.”

“But this was my idea! Shouldn’t I be the one to have the grand entrance?”

“You’ll use it for more dumb pranks.”

“Bluetooth, are you calling this prank dumb?”

“Absolutely.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. I can do much better with a bit more planning. Which is exactly why you should give me the code.”

“That’s exactly why I shouldn’t.”

Ronan slid back over to the others, watching as Blue shoved Henry’s face away from the keypad while simultaneously trying to shield the code from view as she struggled to type it in. Henry, from Ronan’s perspective, seemed to be more focused on annoying Blue by licking her hand and reaching forward to flick at her hair, rather than actually steal the code. Was this flirting? This was definitely flirting.

“Fuck,” Ronan said softly, the curse almost lost to the night.

“What’s that?” Henry asked, turning his face to look at Ronan. The majority of his body weight was resting on Blue’s hand as it smooshed into his cheek, trying to hold him at bay. Henry was leaning into it as he tried to cover the keypad with his hands, Blue ineffectually trying to swat them away with her free hand. Ronan hoped she dropped him.

Ronan scrambled for an excuse that wasn’t full of self-loathing or a lie.

“I just realized I could have come here to skip classes.” It would have been better than sitting around Monmouth, waiting for Gansey to come home and be Disappointed. Or, worse, for _Declan_ to come around and be Parental.

“Oh, yeah,” Henry said. “Koh came here to skip English at least once a week. It got to the point where the staff was letting him groom the dogs.”

“Why didn’t you ask _him_ for the code?” Blue asked, kicking out at his shins.

“I did! The asshole gave me a fake one that set an alarm off and made the dogs go haywire. I got detention for trying to break in.” He pulled away from Blue, apparently giving up on the code and instead plastering his face to the window inlaid into the front door, trying to peer inside. “He said he just thought it’d be funny, but I think he liked having something to himself, y’know? A quiet space without the rest of Litchfield - without _me_ \- joining in and complicating everything.”

“You? Complicate something? _Never.”_

“Your sarcasm wounds me, Bluejay.”

She quickly typed in the code while Henry was busy pretending to fix his hair in the window’s reflection, and there was a small _beep_ and a flashing green light. 

Blue elbowed her boyfriend hard enough to make him wince. Ronan smirked.

“Show us your grand entrance,” she said.

Henry grinned, then threw the door back with a flourish, striding into a small reception area lit only by soft emergency lights and the dull glow of the Exit sign. Ronan watched with Blue as he climbed on top of the desk, cupping his hands to his mouth and projecting his words throughout the building.

“Fear not, fair puppies and gentledogs, for we have come to rescue you from your droll, kennel-bound lives! While your affluent owners are galavanting around Fiji and Morocco during their well-earned winter vacation, we will give you a vacation of your own! For one night only, you will enjoy all of the luxuries that Aglionby has to offer - countless squirrels to chase, thirteen different buildings to piss on, and an immaculate lawn to cover with excrement to your heart’s content! Now, who’s ready for a night full of magic and mayhem?”

The answering call of countless barks and howls filled the building, reverberating through Ronan’s chest until a grin split his face, joining Henry’s gleeful whoop and Blue’s crackling laugh before they were lost to the wall of noise echoing through the kennel.

Ronan closed his eyes, letting the night wash over him and sink into his bones, pushing out whatever lethargy and melancholy still clung to him. He was breaking into Aglionby. He was going to pet some dogs. He was on a date that wasn’t a date. He was going to have _fun._

“Sargento!” Henry yelled. “Give us the grand tour!”

Blue rolled her eyes, but led them into a central hallway lined with windows. To the right he could see what looked like state-of-the-art grooming studios and training centers, and to the left he could see one long pool that spanned the length of the building, lit only by soft underwater lights this late in the evening.

“Is that a wave pool on the end there?” Henry asked, plastered to the window beside Ronan. The chorus of barks was coming in fits and spurts now, echoing from above, waning to silence until one barked just right and got them all started up again. 

“Yup,” Blue said, popping the P. “There’s a full vet clinic in the back, too, with a doctor and tech on site for a few hours every day, and there’s a massive obstacle course a little ways into the woods.” 

“Fancy,” Henry said. Somewhere amidst the noise, Ronan swore he heard a _quack_ , but that couldn’t be right. “Almost makes me wish I’d lived here instead of Litchfield.”

“Wait until you see the kennels themselves,” Blue said. “These dogs live far better than anyone else in Henrietta, even your rich asses.”

The dogs themselves were housed on the second floor - another long hallway with small windows looking into each dog’s room. Each door had an embossed nameplate, along with a dossier of each dog’s likes, dislikes, medication schedule, and the owner’s contact information. Ronan whistled appreciatively as he peeked through a window at random, seeing a brown chihuahua in a pink sweater lounging on a bean bag chair, engrossed in what looked like a _telenovela_ playing on a flat-screen that took up most of one wall.

“Jesus,” Ronan said, taking in the various toys and comfort items scattered throughout the room, as well as the floor-to-ceiling one-way windows that overlooked Aglionby’s campus. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Gertrude is treated like the queen she is,” Henry said, reaching over and opening the dog’s door. These, apparently, were not locked. “And now it’s time for the queen to run free.”

Gertrude just looked at them, blinking her big, beady eyes before turning back to the _telenovela._

“Be free, G,” Henry said, stepping into the room. “Run wild! Release the beast!” Gertrude continued to look unimpressed. Henry bent down and shooed her off her bean bag. “Chaos in the streets!” Gertrude padded over to a cushy-looking dog bed and started chewing on a squeaky toy.

Henry sighed, pouting at Gertrude for a second before walking over and trying to pick her up. She growled, the little pink sweater doing nothing to diminish the fierceness of her sharp teeth. Henry yelped and scrambled across the room, brandishing a stuffed animal as a shield.

Ronan bent down and cooed softly, grinning when Gertrude came trotting over, putting her front paws on his knee and licking his offered fingers.

“Show-off,” Henry muttered, snapping a picture with his phone.

“Not my fault she doesn’t like you.”

“How precious,” Blue cooed from the doorway. Ronan flipped her off without looking up from the important work of petting Gertrude behind the ears. This was why he was here after all.

He scooped her up in one arm, turning to Blue and cocking an eyebrow. “Next room?”

Blue started throwing open doors, and Ronan gently set Gertrude down in the hallway. Henry took one look at her shivering form as a massive German Shepherd came bounding down the hall and picked her back up, ignoring the snap of her tiny teeth as he held her aloft. 

“I am saving your life, dear one. It just wouldn’t do to recreate a _Lion King_ moment. Ronan, toss me a treat before Gertrude gnaws my fingers off, would you?”

“No thanks,” he said, bending down to pet a Shiba Inu mix named Yasha.

“Ungrateful traitor,” Henry muttered, stalking back into Gertrude’s room as she barked wildly at him. “If she eats my beautiful face, I’m making you dream me a new one.”

“Fat chance,” Ronan said, watching Yasha scamper off after a spotted Basset Hound. He opened a nearby door, listening to Henry rummage around in Gertrude’s room before letting out a triumphant “Ha- _Ha!”_

He emerged with Gertrude licking his fingers, tail wagging wildly as Henry placed her safely against his stomach and zipped up his jacket. She licked the underside of Henry’s chin, making him giggle, and Ronan felt his stomach twist.

“Are we friends now? We’re friends now,” Henry said decisively, planting a kiss on top of her head. “This milestone calls for a selfie,” he said, winking at the camera as three more dogs rocketed down the hallway.

“They’re gonna bottleneck in the lobby,” Ronan called to Blue.

Her sigh was audible even from halfway across the building. “Then go open the front doors.”

“Don’t wanna,” Ronan said. “We’re busy with Gertrude.”

“I’m going to cover you in raw hamburger and let the dogs eat you alive,” she yelled, pushing a reluctant Saint Bernard out of his room. 

Ronan shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

“Letting them out onto the grounds all at once would be more dramatic,” Henry said, moving toward Blue. “It’d make a great video to send to Gansey. RoboBee is a magnificent camerabee.”

Blue paused, lying across the back of the frankly massive Saint Bernard, patting it absently as it panted and drooled onto the floor. The thing was as big as a Great Dane - what had they been feeding it, growth hormones? “Fine. But I call dibs on going downstairs to hang out in the sea of dogs and make sure they don’t hurt each other. You two finish up up here.”

“Aye aye, captain!” Henry said, saluting with a serious look on his face. The effect was lessened with the shivering chihuahua in his jacket.

Blue brushed past them, blowing Henry a kiss and slugging Ronan on the arm before clomping down the steps, the Saint Bernard trotting after her, leaving a distinct trail of drool. Ronan scowled at her back, rubbing his throbbing bicep. “Fucking tree genes,” he muttered.

“To work, to work,” Henry said, tugging on Ronan’s sleeve as he headed down the hallway. “There are dogs to pet.”

“How do we know there aren’t cameras?” Ronan asked, watching as Henry threw open the next door. He didn’t particularly care if they were caught, but he figured Blue (and Gansey, and Adam) would never let him hear the end of it if they were arrested. 

“Oh, there are,” Henry said, awkwardly trying to gesture an elderly Corgi into the hallway. “The whole campus is wired, but RoboBee turned them off. I’ve had Aglionby’s security system hacked since my second week here.”

“You do this often? Break into school after dark?”

“Often enough.”

“Why?” Ronan had hardly been able to stomach the place for the few hours he’d bothered showing up. He couldn’t imagine returning during the freedom of the night.

Henry shoved his free hand into his pocket, withdrew it to play with his jacket’s zipper, then the collar, then Gertrude’s sweater, then back into his pocket. 

“Exposure therapy,” he eventually managed, voice slightly strained. “Claustrophobia and nyctophobia. Gansey told you about the priest hole?”

“Where you both had some soul-bonding heart attacks together? Yeah.”

He nodded several times in quick succession, making his hair wave softly in the emergency lighting. “I’d come here to lock myself in progressively smaller and darker spaces. Schools are empty at night, and Aglinoby is big enough where I could scream without worrying about the cops showing up prepped for a murder scene. Even the on-site security team never caught on, although that was probably due more to their hacked camera feeds than to any stealth on my part.”

Ronan imagined himself hearing this confession a year ago, imagined him taunting Henry with it. Threatening to shove him into janitor’s closets and car trunks. Actually doing it, if he was in a shitty enough mood.

Now, he imagined Henry terrified and alone in the dark, imagined him putting himself there over and over again.

He saw Adam going home to his father every night, Noah stuck in an endless, twitching loop, Gansey facing down his own death while Blue kissed him to let him go. He saw night after night of claws and teeth and pain ripping him apart.

He wanted to reach for Henry’s hand, pull him closer, like he would with Adam He didn’t.

“Did anyone know?”

“The whole gang knows I’m a screamer,” Henry said with a wink and a forced smile. After a few seconds of Ronan refusing to respond, he sighed. “No, no one knew. Litchfield was used to me sneaking out, between side jobs for Seondeok and general high school debauchery. They stopped trying to pin me down early Sophomore year. I got very good at lying to them, and they got very good at pretending they weren’t being lied to.”

“Do you still do it?”

Henry shrugged. “Lie? No. I don’t see the point. It’s not like I still have Cheng2 hounding me every time I wander in at 3am.”

“No, the...exposure therapy.” 

“Oh. In a sense. I’m on a yearlong road trip, Lynch, and the EcoPig is a fucking coffin even when it’s not stuffed with three peoples’ luggage. It’s easier, though, not being alone.” He swung open another door, almost getting knocked over as two Beagles sprinted out. “I wish I’d known that in high school. Litchfield might have been easier if I had only been hiding a portion of myself from them, rather than the entirety.”

“Are you hiding yourself from us?”

Henry’s gaze was steady. “Not anymore.”

Ronan wondered when that had changed, when Henry had gone from hiding to loving. To trusting. In the priest hole with Gansey? At that stupid toga party? Or sometime later, after Glendower, during the months of piecing themselves back together and learning to move forward? 

He wondered what made them different from his Litchfield friends.

He wondered what made _him_ different.

The magic, probably. It always came down to the magic.

“Good,” was all he said.

Henry blinked. “You’re not mad?”

“Why the fuck would I be mad?”

“I just admitted that my entire high school existence was constructed out of lies. You hate liars more than anything.”

Ronan shrugged. “Still do.”

He still hated liars, hated that feeling of putting his faith in someone and then having the wind knocked out of him when he least expected it. But quiet conversations at the Barns, in the dead of night when secrets were easier to bear, had shifted his views. Lying was a shield, when your father gave you a black eye for the truth. Lying was a sanctuary, when your mother rooted around in your room for secrets. Lying was a disguise, when you were terrified of being seen.

Lying was a hard habit to break, after relying on it for so long.

Ronan still couldn’t stand liars, but he was in love with one despite himself, and well on his way to falling for another. 

“I’m confused,” Henry said.

“Join the fucking club.” Henry continued looking at him, eyebrows furrowed and tense, and Ronan signed. “You haven’t lied to us, right? About magic or fear or anything important?”

“Never.”

He was doing far better than Adam, in that regard. Far better than any of them. If Henry couldn’t see that, then he was an idiot.

“Then we’re good.”

They moved on in tentative silence, letting a small army of Dalmations and Bulldogs and Afghan Hounds out into the hallway, all barking and chasing each other, their noise joining with the cacophony downstairs.. Ronan could hear Blue laughing and cursing even above the dogs’ joy, and he smiled as he swung open another door.

And stopped, frozen by what waited inside.

“That,” Henry said from behind him, “is a duck.”

“Duck fuck,” Ronan said.

“Fuck duck,” Henry responded.

The duck in question quacked loudly at them before flying over their heads into the sea of very big, very rowdy dogs.

“Shit - fuck -” Ronan yelled.

“Duck!” Henry added helpfully.

It landed on the head of a brindled Greyhound named Lucy, who immediately started snapping her very large, very sharp teeth at the duck, jumping wildly into the air as she tried to tear it apart.

“Oh,” Henry said as Ronan dove for the poor bird frantically flapping its wings in Lucy’s face. “Shit.”

He pulled the duck to his chest and swivelled, putting his back to Lucy as she jumped on his shoulder, whining and snapping only a breath from his ear. 

“If this stupid prank gets my ear bitten off-”

“It won’t!” Henry yelled. “Gimme a sec!”

The duck pulled away from him, flapping its wings in a desperate attempt to escape, but Ronan held it close as the other dogs started eyeing it, ears perked and tails at attention. 

“Hurry the fuck up!”

The duck switched tactics, stretching its neck toward Lucy’s head, and Ronan’s heart flew into his throat as Lucy’s jaw opened, stretching wide-

Only to lick the duck’s forehead.

“Oh,” he said weakly. “You’re friends.”

A tennis ball arched through the air, grabbing most of the dogs’ attention as it bounced against the wall and hit a Golden Retriever named Toast in the side. She yelped and pounced, and then the hallway truly descended into chaos.

“Henry to the rescue!” Henry yelled as he threw several more balls into the air. The dogs surged for them, jumping over each other and careening into walls as they gave chase, tails wagging and tongues dragging. Lucy used Ronan’s back as a springboard to launch herself at a tennis ball that narrowly missed Ronan’s head, grabbing it in her jaws and wagging her tail happily as she ran from a pursuing Terrier. 

“Jesus Christ,” Ronan said, hugging the duck to his chest as his heart threatened to explode out of his throat.

“No,” Henry said. “Her name is Beatrice. She likes bubble baths.” 

Ronan noticed that Henry’s hands were shaking as hard as Gertrude, but made no comment. His own knees were doing just as badly.

“Beatrice is going to give me a heart attack.” She pecked his hand, but he noticed she was no longer trying to escape, perhaps understanding that not every hyped-up dog here wanted to simply lick her. 

“Beatrice has a thirst for adventure,” Henry said. “I can respect that.”

“What the fuck are you boys doing up here?” Blue yelled from the top of the stairwell, hands planted on hips, eyes threatening murder.

“Starting a party,” Henry said. “Saving a duck.”

“Finishing up,” Ronan said, wading to the last door and letting three very enthusiastic Toy Poodles into the mix.

It was surprisingly easy to get the rest of the dogs down the stairs - all Henry had to do was taunt them with a new tennis ball and launch it, creating a tsunami of fluff that threatened to take them all down. Ronan held onto Beatrice for dear life as he hugged the wall, watching as Henry laughed maniacally as he was nearly lost within a river of ecstatic canines, Gertrude yipping and barking in his jacket to contribute to the racket. Blue somehow easily moved with the crowd of dogs down the steps, not only avoiding getting trampled, but actively keeping the herd under relative control to keep them from denting the walls or smaller breeds.

Magic, indeed.

The last stragglers thumped down the steps, and Henry turned to Ronan, eyes alight as he gestured toward the steps. Ronan could hear an unholy chorus of excited barks reverberating from beneath them, with Blue’s laughter ringing above it all. “Shall we?”

“Whatever.”

Ronan wondered if he should put Beatrice back in her room - a lovely affair containing a pond stocked with fish, a multitude of toys, and, of course, a TV. But it seemed cruel to let every other animal in the building out for a night of revelry and leave her cooped up in her room just because she might be hunted for sport. He’d just have to keep her with him. Problem solved.

They descended into a madhouse.

The bottom floor was carpeted with dogs.

Most of them were up toward the lobby, and with every step they took Ronan could feel their barks growing louder, vibrating through his very bones and filling him with a giddy joy. 

He left Henry to try and prod the stragglers forward while he joined Blue in the lobby.

Dogs dripped from every surface, and Ronan couldn’t contain his laughter as he waded into the sea, wiggling masses of fluff pushing into him from every side. He held Beatrice with one arm - thankfully calm as she laid her head on his shoulder and started quacking to add her voice to the symphony - as he patted and ruffled the fur of every dog within reach. They pressed harder against him in response, stepping on his boots and jumping onto his chest, licking both Beatrice and Ronan’s face in their excitement.

Blue had lifted several of the smaller dogs onto the receptionist’s desk, and even more were jumping around on the waiting room chairs and tables, along with a Pitbull that sat happily on top of a small pile of _Country Living_ magazines.

“Ronan gets the honor of opening the doors!” Henry yelled from somewhere behind him.

“Well hurry it up!” Blue yelled back. “Any longer and they’re going to break through themselves.”

Ronan pushed through the room as gently as he could, trying to satisfy every dog as they surged around him. He saw a Boxer launch themself off a wall, a Golden Retriever rip up a chair cushion, a Yorkie climb on top of the Saint Bernard’s head to growl at Henry as he nudged the final dog into the room. 

“This is a fucking mess,” Ronan said, laughing as he finally reached the door.

“The best nights always are,” Henry called as he shied away from the Yorkie before turning around and holding his phone up for a selfie that encompassed the chaos of the room. Blue and Ronan both flipped the camera the finger as it swung in their direction, and Henry pouted over his shoulder before waving his hand in the “go ahead” motion. 

RoboBee was circling overhead, likely videotaping the entire thing, and Ronan was sure to roll his eyes before grasping the doorknob, pulling back against the weight of far too many (never enough) dogs.

 _“Release the hounds!”_ Henry yelled as they rushed through the crack, pushing the door open so quickly that it slammed into Ronan and knocked him flat on his ass. Another laugh bubbled up as Beatrice quacked indignantly in his ear, dogs of all sizes streaking past them as they raced for the freedom of the night outside. It was the moment when a dream manifested after days of pushing on his mind, his soul, when everything fell into place and the pressure released its hold.

It was silence. Peace.

“Well,” Blue said after a moment. “That was something.”

“Gansey’s going to be so mad,” Henry said, grin covering half his face.

“He’ll get over it,” Blue said, offering Ronan a hand to help him up. He took it, surprised when she lifted him easily. He was never going to get used to the tree strength.

“Let’s go see what chaos we’ve wrought,” Henry said. 

Ronan shivered as he stepped into the night air. He hadn’t realized just how warm he’d gotten, packed in with a hundred dogs, two friends, and a duck. He wrapped his jacket tighter around himself and Beatrice, thankful that the duck was a little heater against his chest.

Ronan couldn’t see far into the night even with the old fashioned street lamps strewn across campus, but it sounded like most of the dogs were scattered, chasing each other across all corners of Aglionby’s grounds. A few were playing tug-of-war with a fallen branch nearby. Several others were stalking the trees and fences, finding the best place to mark their newfound territory. One enthusiastic Dachshund named Oscar Mayer was digging up a section of grass with such fervor that he was practically burying the small Maltese lying next to him.

“The lobby was far more chaotic,” Blue said.

“It’s missing something,” Henry agreed. 

“I think it’s fine,” Ronan said, bending down to scratch Lucy behind the ears. Beatrice quached at her as Lucy rolled over for some tummy rubs. “This was fun.”

“Ah, and that’s exactly the problem!” Henry said, pointing an accusing finger at him. _“Was._ This night is not over, Lynch. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“What else is there left to do?” Blue asked, the look on her face saying she already regretted asking. It was a distinctly Maura look, but Ronan wasn’t stupid enough to point that out.

“So much, Blue Clues. I promised Bronan a night of excitement and revelry, and I intend to deliver.”

“This is fine,” Ronan repeated, sitting on the frozen ground and running his knuckles across the bumps of Lucy’s spine as she sprawled next to him.

“Fine,” Henry said indignantly, “is not good enough. Wait here, I have an idea.”

“Henry-”

“Gertrude and I will return shortly!” Henry said, already jogging down the sidewalk. He slowed to edge around the Yorkie - who stopped peeing on a street lamp long enough to growl at him - before waving over his shoulder. “Improvements will be made! The Date Night Extraordinaire will be a success, I swear it on my lustrous hair!”

“It’s already a success, you dramatic asshole,” Ronan yelled after him.

“‘Fine’ is not a success!” he yelled back.

Beatrice snuggled down into his lap as Lucy placed her head on his knee, and Ronan busied both hands by scratching the tops of their heads. Blue plopped down beside him, stretching out her legs as the Saint Bernard came over and flopped down on top of them. “Hello, Percival,” she muttered fondly, kissing the top of his head. They were a regular dog pile.

“So,” she said after a minute, playing with Percival’s floppy ears. “You feeling better?”

Ronan shrugged. “I guess.”

Thinking of how he was feeling better only made him remember how he’d felt before, and why he’d felt that way.

Everyone was going to leave again. Adam off to Harvard. Gansey, Blue, and Henry off on adventures. Noah off to his family.

Ronan, here. Alone.

Blue knocked her shoulder against his own. “Stop that.”

“Fuck off.”

“No. You don’t get to push us away, asshole. That’s what this whole thing is about. We’re here, even when we’re not _here,_ okay?”

“That makes no sense.”

“Look,” Blue said quietly. “You stopped calling us a few weeks after we left. You stopped picking up your phone a few weeks after that. Gansey kept pushing for us to circle back around to Virginia, even though that meant we’d have to make a courtesy call to his parents. We only knew you were alive because Calla said the line would have a fit if the greywaren died, and Adam reassured us that you were at least reading _his_ texts.”

Ronan focused on the knobs in Lucy’s back, circling them with his fingers. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be sorry,” Blue said. “Just-” She exhaled in a heavy rush of air, her breath a thick cloud. “I still can’t kiss Gansey - _he_ has to kiss _me,_ because there’s something in me that’s still convinced I’m going to kill him, even if I know the curse is broken. He still cries about Glendower when he thinks we can’t hear, and he has nightmares almost every time he manages to sleep. Henry can’t be in the car for longer than four hours before he needs us to pull over. Noah is half-convinced that he’s still dead and this is all just a hallucination. I know Adam still flinches every time he touches your neck.”

“What’s your point?” Ronan snapped. 

“My point is that we’re all messed up, together. You’re not alone, so stop fucking acting like it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“I know that,” she snapped, his mirror. “It’s never easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. Gansey kisses me. I hold him. Henry talks Noah down. You pull Adam closer. We’re together, and we let each other help. That’s what friends _do._ Let us help. Join the metaphorical care circle before you kill yourself, dumbass.”

“I’m not going to kill myself,” he said, digging the heel of his palm into his eyes.

“Well Gansey isn’t convinced.”

“I’m _not.”_ He wasn’t doing well - he knew that - but it wasn’t the same as right after Niall had died. Ronan never wanted to fall that far again.

Blue looked at him for a moment, eyes like steel before she nodded. “Good. Mom would murder me if I helped raise the dead again.”

“Third time’s the charm,” he muttered.

“Shut up,” she said, shoving his shoulder with a laugh that was only half-forced. Beatrice squacked at the sudden movement. “Just quit acting like we all up and abandoned you. We’re coming back.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Gansey’s applying to state schools despite all the shit he’s getting from his parents about Ivy Leagues. Noah’s thinking about taking some classes at his local community college. Henry’s going to Harvard solely so he can bully Adam into flying down here with him every weekend.”

Ronan hadn’t know that. Any of it.

“And you?”

Blue shrugged. “A state school with Gansey, if I can get in. A nearby community college if I can’t.”

“They’d be stupid not to let you in.”

“Damn straight.”

They bumped fists, and something within Ronan settled. Everyone was going off to college, off to pursue their futures, when Ronan still wasn’t even sure if he had one. If he deserved one. He was still stuck in the past, wallowing in his parents’ deaths, stuck in the future that had been ripped away from him, rather than the one that they had all fought so hard to hold onto.

Was that the ending he wanted?

“You good?” Blue asked.

“No,” Ronan said, the word burning his throat on the way out. “But getting there.”

Blue leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder as she reached over to pet Beatrice. Ronan let his eyes drift closed as his breaths softened to lazy puffs and the cold brushed against his skin. But he was bracketed by warmth - Blue, Beatrice, Lucy, Percival - and they kept the full brunt of winter at bay.

“It’s snowing.”

Ronan felt a spark of cold spread across his cheek, and he peeled open his eyes to see fat, lazy snowflakes drifting through the air. Lucy perked up beside him, lifting her head to snap at the flakes. Blue was doing much the same on his other side.

“Think it’ll stick?” he asked, poking out his tongue. When in Rome, and all that. “I’d love to shove a snowball down Cheng’s pants.”

“He’d probably like that too,” Blue said, laughing.

“Christ, you took all the fun out of it, Sargent. Gross.” She just laughed harder, and Ronan felt his lips quirk in response. “Maybe I’ll dump some on his head instead. Ruin his hair. He’d hate that.”

“He would,” she agreed. “Let’s do it.”

“We can bury Gansey’s boat shoes. Make a scavenger hunt out of it.”

“Snowball fight for Noah.”

“Snowmen for Adam.”

She crinkled her nose. “He likes building snowmen?”

“He’s never made one before. He was always shovelling sidewalks for extra cash.”

“Shit,” Blue said softly. “Snowmen for Adam, then. A whole field. I think Gansey’s got carrots in the fridge. They’re the baby ones, though.”

“I don’t think Adam’ll mind.”

“Assuming it sticks.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said, craning his neck to look at the grey sky above, the flakes falling down like dimly lit stars. _Cabeswater,_ he thought. _Do us a favor?_ “Assuming it sticks.”

The snowfall thickened for just a second, a prayer heard, and Ronan smiled.

“Hey,” Blue said, sitting up straight and rapidly slapping Ronan’s arm. “Look.”

Ronan looked.

Across campus, the trees were flickering to life. 

“Christmas lights,” he said, watching as another section lit up, the soft white lights illuminating the grounds. They glittered in the falling snow, twinkling on and off in a gentle cascade. 

“Henry,” Blue said as the dogs came to life once more, jumping at the trees and barking at the snow. They could see them running around Aglionby, now, chasing each other and rolling across the grass in a mesmerizing dance of joy.

Their section of lights was the last to turn on, and Ronan didn’t know if that was because they were in a secluded corner of the grounds, or if Henry was trying to be dramatic. Lucy blinked at the lights before stretching and standing up, ambling over to join a Black Lab in jumping and snapping at the falling snow.

Ronan threw his head back again and opened his mouth, letting the freezing stars fall against his tongue. He wondered if he’d dream about this, later.

A voice blared through the speakers spread throughout campus, startling him so badly that Beatrice quacked and flapped away from him.

_“WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOFWOOF!”_

“Oh, my God,” Blue said, laughing so hard she doubled over. _“Henry!”_

Ronan scrambled for Beatrice, but she flapped away from him, glaring up from the grass like he was the one to blame for the deafening racket. Blue jumped up as well, squeezing out from beneath Percival before punching her fists into the air and twisting with the beat. “Dance with me!” she yelled.

“Fuck no!” he yelled back, but she grabbed his hands anyway, yanking him to and fro, forcing his body to move with the music. Her eyes were shining stars, and her laugh was champagne bubbles as they filled the air around them. He filed the sound away for later dreams, knowing it would keep the darker parts of his mind at bay. “This is stupid!”

“This is fun!”

Ronan scowled, but it held no heat, and both of them knew it.

A single, deep bark was all the warning they had before Percival plowed into Blue, knocking her to the ground and covering her in muddy fur.

“Percival!” she yelled, arms failing to wrap all the way around the dog as she tried to hug him. “I can’t dance with you when you’re suffocating me!”

Ronan looked around, seeing the chaos that the music had caused - dogs racing in circles, jumping on each other, barking at the sky. Exactly what Henry had been envisioning. The beat thudded in his chest, right beside the barks and howls of the dogs. His heart soared.

It was an improvement, even if Ronan would never admit it.

He glanced back at Blue, only to see that she and Percival were both upright. She patted her shoulders and Percival obliged, jumping up and leaning on her, placing his head on top of hers. Blue laughed and started spinning them in a slow, swaying circle in sharp contrast to the rap lyrics blasting across the lawn.

“He’s a better dance partner than you, Lynch!” she yelled.

“Fuck off!”

A flash of color stole Ronan’s attention, and he turned to see Henry running full-tilt across the lawn, Gertrude tucked tightly against his chest with one arm. His cheeks were red from the cold, and his hair drooped from melted snow. His pastel jacket glowed underneath the soft lights, and his eyes glittered as he sang the lyrics to the song as loud as he could. Ronan found it easy to imagine kissing him, like this.

“Your girlfriend is being stolen by a dog named Percival!” he yelled instead.

“We have an open relationship!” Henry yelled back, laughing as he slid to a stop.

“I think I’m out,” Blue said. “Percival has stolen me away.”

 _“Mon Dieu,”_ Henry said, placing a hand to his mouth. “My heart, my soul, my Blueberry. _Why?”_

She shrugged, pivoting away from them. “He’s prettier than you.”

“Taller, too,” Ronan noted.

“So heartless! So cruel! I will have to elope with Gertrude to mend my broken heart.” He pulled her out of his jacket, planting a kiss on top of her head before holding her at arm’s length and swinging her gently through the air. Gertrude barked happily, tail wagging as she licked Henry’s hand. He laughed and spun in a circle, effortlessly scream-singing along with the song as they bounced across the grass.

Ronan pulled out his phone and snapped a picture, trying to memorize the way the snow fell in slow, fat puffs, the way the light sparkled off of Blue’s hair clips, the way Henry’s smile lit up the night. 

He didn’t want this moment to end.

But the song slid to a close, and Blue and Henry stopped their slow spinning.

Then a voice blared through the speakers once more, this time autotuned and underlaid by a heavy EDM beat.

_“WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOFWOOF!”_

Blue laughed, as light and clear as the surrounding snow.

“Remix!” Henry yelled, raising Gertrude above his head and wiggling her around. “The night isn’t over yet!”

“How many of these are there?” Ronan asked.

“Twenty different versions are queued up and ready to bless the surrounding area with a taste of our Date Night Extraordinaire for the next hour.” 

“Those poor bastards.”

Henry laughed, and Ronan watched as he went back to swinging Gertrude around in complex patterns, still scream-singing the lyrics. Blue joined in on the chorus, attempting to waltz with Percival despite neither of them knowing how.

Something flapped beside his ear, and Ronan felt a feathery weight land on his head, quackling loudly. He reached up and snatched Beatrice before she could shit on him, cradling her in his arms.

“She wants to dance!” Blue called. 

“Don’t keep the lady waiting!” Henry yelled.

“I don’t dance!”

“I don’t think she cares!” Blue said, laughing loudly as Percival drooled onto her hair. Indeed, Beatrice was glaring at him, and Ronan tentatively bounced her up and down to the beat. She quacked happily, fluttering her wings and nuzzling up against him.

“Move your feet, Lynch!” Henry said. “Rocking a baby is not dancing!”

“Fuck off!”

He did a quick step sequence from his Irish dance competition phase before flipping Henry off, blushing vividly when the other boy just whooped and whistled enthusiastically. He saw the soft red light of RoboBee circling overhead, and he wondered when a video of this would end up circling the group chat.

“Now _that’s_ what I’m talking about! Hidden depths, yet still so violently Irish.”

“He plays the bagpipes, too!” Blue said, the traitor.

“Fuck _off!”_

They both laughed, and Ronan couldn’t help but laugh with them. He felt happy, here, under the snow with terrible music filling him up and laughter ringing through the air. How long had it been since he felt like this? Full and bright and _alive?_ Since Glendower? Since Adam had left for Harvard? Or longer still - since Mom had died in his forest?

This was the future he wanted. This was the future he’d try and fight for.

Even if he had to fight himself.

The song ended and another began - this one sounded like a Kpop cover - and Ronan moved to sit at the base of a tree, Beatrice settling in his lap as they both watched the snowflakes fall through the flickering branches. He still didn’t feel _good_ , exactly, but he felt whole. Like when he made peace with his dreams, or when Mom opened her eyes in Cabeswater. Like when he’d kissed Adam.

He wasn’t fixed, but he was better, in this moment. Right now, that was enough.

A large mound of fluff settled beside him with a huff, and Ronan pat Percival on the head as Blue flopped down on top of him. Henry sat down on Ronan’s other side, Gertrude curling up in his lap.

“So,” Henry asked. “Good date?”

“Solid six out of ten.”

“Lame,” Henry said. “I’ll do better next time.”

“Next time we’re doing putt-putt,” Blue said. “Ronan promised.”

“Do you think being psychic would give anyone an unfair advantage at putt-putt?” Henry asked. 

“Calla rules at putt-putt, but I don’t think it’s a psychic thing. She’s just unreasonably competitive,” Blue said. 

“I tried playing poker with Adam a few days ago and he destroyed me without even knowing the rules,” Henry said.

“Never play card games with Adam,” Ronan said seriously. “He’s a monster.”

“I left Monmouth in only my boxers - in the dead of winter! - and I think that bit of mercy was only Adam not wanting to deal with the fallout of me being arrested for public nudity.”

“A monster,” Ronan repeated. He wished Adam was here. Adam loved dogs, and, more importantly, Adam let himself be loved by dogs without all the hangups he had with people. Plus, he looked amazing all bundled up against the cold. Warm and soft and sleepy-

Beatrice quacked loudly, a warning, and Ronan looked over his shoulder to see red and blue flashing lights reflecting off the historical brick buildings. Two figures moved toward them, the Christmas lights flickering off their uniforms. Behind them, several golf carts roved the sidewalks, emergency lights strobing off their roofs.

Aglionby’s security guards.

“Shit,” he said under his breath.

“Hey! What do you kids think you’re doing? Where the fuck did all these dogs come from?”

“It’s the fuzz!” Henry yelled. “Time to skedaddle!”

They surged to their feet, scrambling to follow Henry as he sprinted toward the side of the Physical Sciences building. Ronan looked back just long enough to ascertain that the dogs seemed to be on their side, launching themselves at the closest guards as they begged for pets and cuddles, licking their faces and tripping up their feet.

 _“Viva la revolución!”_ Henry yelled, pumping his fist into the air. Gertrude barked in agreement.

They followed the building to the back side of Aglionby’s fence, and Ronan relaxed a bit once they were away from the street lamps and Christmas lights. Here, shadows pooled against their skin, caking them in darkness as they scrambled through the muddy slush on the ground, away from the chaos unfolding in the quad.

Then a blinding light fell on Ronan’s face, causing him to curse and stumble against Blue’s back. Somehow - tree strength? - she didn’t go down, but Ronan bounced off, slamming into a patch of mud with his shoulder, holding tight to Beatrice to keep her from getting injured.

“Found ‘em!” a guard yelled, hidden behind the approaching beam of light. “They’re dognappers!”

“How dare you? We’re dog _liberators,”_ Henry said.

The flashlight dropped to the ground, and Henry yelped as a pale hand wrapped around his wrist and pulled him off-balance, Gertrude barking frantically. “We’ll see how that holds up down at the station.”

“You can’t arrest us,” Blue said, planting her hands on her hips as the guard secured zip tie handcuffs around one of Henry’s wrists. Henry held Gertrude with his free hand, trying to pull out of the other man’s grasp. Ronan let Beatrice go and stood up, his soaked clothes sticking uncomfortably to his frame, shifting into an attack stance. “You’re not police. I know our rights.” Percival growled, low and deep, and the hairs on the back of Ronan’s neck stood on end.

“I am authorized to secure any trespassers until the police arrive - will you _stay still?”_

“You’re scaring Gertrude!” Henry snapped, still trying to twist away from the man. “And I haven’t seen an _ounce_ of identification from you. For all I know, you’re trying to kidnap me and this poor dog.”

The guard got a hold of Henry’s other wrist, and Ronan tensed, snapping forward as plastic wrapped around thin bones, pulling taunt-

_“QUACK!”_

A flurry of white feathers flew into the guard’s face, and he screamed, stumbling back. “Get it off, get it off!”

Henry fell to the ground, landing on his ass with a wince. “She has a name!” he yelled.

“Beatrice!” Ronan called, stepping past Henry, heart hammering in his chest as the guard swatted at his face. The duck flapped around his head, slapping and snapping for all she was worth.

“She’s fine,” Blue said, tugging at his elbow. “Time to go!” She pulled Henry to his feet and pushed him back the way they’d just come from, and Ronan reluctantly moved to follow. The guard crouched on the ground, hands over his head, whimpering as Beatrice circled, quacking ominously.

“Your sacrifice shall not be in vain!” Henry yelled as he twisted one wrist out of the looser side of the cuffs and hugged Gertrude to calm her frantic barking. “We will never forget you!”

_“Quack!”_

The quad was awash with dogs running in every imaginable direction, barking and chasing anything that moved - and _everything_ was moving. Snow fell in a thick veil as Christmas lights flickered overhead and flashlights swung to and fro, throwing wild shadows streaking across the lawn. Red and blue strobing lights inverted the world into something surreal as golf carts circled ominously, chased by crowds of dogs. And above it all, a bluegrass cover of _Who Let the Dogs Out_ twanged through the frigid air. Henry laughed as they entered the chaos, and Ronan cursed as he narrowly avoided tripping over a Corgi racing down the sidewalk, tongue trailing behind him. 

“Okay,” Henry said, leading them toward a line of sparkling trees. “Jump the fence near the kennels and circle around, or just head directly toward the car?”

“Kennels are closer,” Blue said. “We wouldn’t have to risk running through the quad.”

Ronan looked toward the kennels just in time to see a guard round the corner of the building, meeting his eyes.

“Uh,” he said.

“There they are!” the guard yelled, pulling out a walkie talkie and immediately starting to run toward them, jumping over an enthusiastic Norwich Terrier chewing on a stick. 

Ronan twisted his head around, seeing three other flashlight beams starting to converge toward them from halfway across the lawn.

“Right,” Blue said. “Through the quad it is.”

“Every man for themself!” Henry yelled, grabbing onto both Blue and Ronan as he cut across the grass, aiming for a path between guards. Gertrude barked wildly, her whole body wiggling frantically in Henry’s jacket as she excitedly snapped at snowflakes racing by.

“I think you misunderstand that phrase,” Blue said as she dodged around a Golden Retriever chasing his tail in endless circles. Percival bound a few feet ahead, barking loudly, clearing a path in front of them as any wayward dogs in his way decided it was best to not be trampled into the muddy grass.

“Well I’m not about to leave anyone behind.”

“Exactly!”

“Less bickering, more running!” Ronan said, pushing Blue forward. Tree genes apparently did not help her in the speed department, and she was starting to lag behind, likely due more to her shorter legs than any lack of stamina.

“Like you’re one to talk,” she snapped, but they fell silent after that, focused on dodging their way through the quad.

They approached the fountain in the middle of the lawn just as the soft twangs of banjos wound down and the horrible screech of off-tune bagpipes charged through the air, overlaid with a thick Scottish accent soulfully singing the lyrics. Ronan glared at an offending speaker, wondering if Henry knew good pipe playing from bad. Doubtful, or this shit wouldn’t be broadcasted for the entire town to hear. If there was one thing Henry took seriously, it was music.

“I picked this one especially for you, RoBro,” Henry said, grinning in his direction and wiggling his eyebrows.

“I’m touched,” Ronan said dryly.

Blue scowled at the sky. “You picked out shitty chase scene music,” she said.

“Yes, well, we can’t all be psychic, can we?”

Two guards were hot on their tails as they got close enough to see that the water had been shut off for the winter. Percival jumped in, barreling straight through, and Ronan moved to follow him, except-

He tripped.

The toe of his boot caught the edge of the fountain, and he went sprawling into the stonework, slamming against the center statue with his back.

 _“Fuck!”_ he growled, sitting up and wiping his nose with stinging hands. Red glistened up at him, and he could feel more oozing from his nose and down his chin.

“Walk much?” Blue asked, grabbing Ronan’s shoulder and wrenching him to his feet. “This is the second time you’ve eaten shit in the past five minute Let’s go before-”

“Too late,” Henry said, pointing over their shoulders.

Two golf carts loaded with security guards skidded to a halt on the sidewalk, blocking their way to the gate. “Stay where you are!” one yelled while they all piled out.

“Fat chance of that,” Henry muttered. “I’ll lead them away, you guys-”

Percival launched himself in the air before Henry could finish, tail wagging as he landed on the clump of guards, knocking all five of them to the ground in a tangled heap. He barked happily as they cursed beneath him, licking their faces and drooling with glee.

“Never mind,” Henry said. “Back to running.”

“Hey - Stop-” the two guards coming up behind them stumbled to a stop with their hands on their knees, desperately sucking in breath as the kids took off again.

“I love you Percival!” Blue yelled as they ran around the writing pile of guards. “I’ll bring you an extra big chew toy later!”

Percival barked again, tail thumping repeatedly on one of the guard’s back.

“You’re coming back?” Ronan asked as they sprinted toward the gate, their path now unobstructed.

“Of course,” she said. “I do have the code.”

“Show off,” Henry muttered.

They sprinted down Aglionby’s singular road, making good time to the main gates. Ronan risked a glance back to see that the guards had finally regained their feet, but Percival was now sprawled across the front seat of one of the golf carts, rolling around and begging for a tummy rub. They weren’t going anywhere fast.

“What are we doing about Gertrude?” Blue asked.

Henry sighed deeply, sliding to a stop beneath a massive Japanese Maple along the entrance into campus. “I suppose it is time for us to say our goodbyes,” he said, taking her out of his jacket and planting a kiss on her head. “We must leave you here, dearest Gertrude. It had been a whirlwind relationship, and I will cherish every second-”

“Henry,” Blue said, tugging on his jacket as she looked back toward the guards piling into the non-obstructed golf cart. “Hurry up.”

“Stay safe, my love,” Henry said, kissing Gertrude again. She licked his cheeks, her entire butt wagging along with her tail as he set her carefully on the ground. “Don’t let them take you alive!” he yelled as Blue pulled him back into a run.

They reached the gates - still closed - at a breakneck speed. Henry vaulted over flawlessly, arching gracefully through the air, and Ronan cupped his hands together to launch Blue over. Then he scrambled over top, managing to spare his jeans but ripping holes in his jacket instead, cursing as he crashed down on the other side of the gate.

When had they become better delinquents than him?

He fingered the hole in his jacket, wondering how hard it would be to dream up a fix for slashed leather. Not very, he decided. Definitely easier than seeing Matthew’s crushed face at the sight of his ruined gift. Definitely easier than the lecture he’d receive from Declan, too.

They jogged to the car, reasonably confident that the security guards weren’t fit or motivated enough to chase them off campus, high-fiving each other on successfully escaping the consequences of their prank. Blue got the keys out, twirling them on one finger as they walked.

“You’ve got - uhhhhhhhh…” Henry said, gesturing to his face.

“Blood,” Blue said. “He’s trying to say blood.”

“Queasy, Cheng?” Ronan asked, grinning as he wiped the blood onto the neckline of his Harvard hoodie. “Don’t faint on me.”

“Not queasy,” he said. “Just a bit turned on.”

“Gross,” Blue said. Ronan kept his head ducked into the hoodie to hide his rampant blushing.

“Uh oh,” Blue said, just as Ronan slammed into her back. 

“Ah, beans,” Henry said. “It’s Muriel.”

Ronan lowered the hoodie to see a Kia with Aglionby’s logo painted on the side pulled up a few yards behind the EcoPig. An old lady wearing the dull grey uniform of Aglionby’s Security Team was leaning against the Kia’s trunk, jotting down something in a small notebook.

She was no taller than Blue and looked well beyond retirement age, with curly grey hair pulled back into a tight bun. Ronan had a moment to wonder if that was why she was out here taking their license plate, rather than inside giving chase to three reckless teenagers.

“I don’t suppose Muriel is a friend?” Blue asked quietly. They had frozen by the side of the road, deer caught in the headlights, and Henry was trying to ease them back out of Muriel’s sight.

“More like mortal enemy,” Henry whispered back. “She was dead set on catching me sneaking in here during high school. Almost managed it a few times. She’s relentless. Don’t underestimate her.”

A burst of static filled the air, along with a garbled series of curses and barks.

“Fuckin’ newbies,” Muriel muttered, before looking up to lock eyes with them.

The world froze.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Muriel dropped her notebook, reaching for her walkie talkie as she sprinted for the driver’s seat.

“They’re outside the gates, what the fuck are you incompetant dipshits _doing_ in there-”

“Go, go, go!” Henry yelled, pushing him forward before snatching the keys from Blue and launching them into the air. 

“Hey!” Blue yelled as Ronan wrenched open the creaking door and wedged himself into the driver’s seat. His knees pressed into the steering wheel as he scrambled for the adjustment lever, breathing out in relief as the pressure was released. _Fuck_ Sargent was tiny.

“Blueberry, I love you, but you drive like a grandma.”

“I drive faster than you do!”

“Hence why Lynch is the one with the keys.”

The car jostled as they scrambled inside, and Ronan didn’t wait for their doors to close before slamming his foot down on the gas, shifting through gears with the speed of practice. Muriel’s Kia shot after them, and Ronan risked a glance in the rearview mirror to see her scowling face still barking orders at the other guards.

Small shops and rowhouses flew by, streaks of shadowed color, downtown Henrietta condensed into a few heart-pounding seconds. This street wasn’t Ronan’s favorite to race on - too many intersections, not enough bends in the road - but that didn’t mean he was going to lose to a fucking _Kia._

Ronan took a turn at twenty over what was safe, running a stop sign in the process, and Blue slapped his shoulder. “Lynch, if you crash my car I’m going to kill you!”

“I gave it to you.”

“That is not the point, and you know it.”

“I won’t crash the damned car!”

“You did crash Gansey’s,” Henry said, twisted around in the backseat so he could watch their pursuer. “And it was, like, this exact car. So.”

“I won’t crash the car,” Ronan said, a feral grin overtaking his face. “I was made for this.”

He could feel the engine rumbling beneath him, urging him to push it faster, faster, faster. He could feel every dip and curve of the road, could see the exact path needed to shave off a few precious milliseconds. The grit of the leather steering wheel, the thunder of the engine, the pressure in the pedals - it all spoke to him in a language beyond comprehension, telling him exactly when to brake, how hard to lean into the turn, how fast to come out of it without tip tip tipping the car-

He was dancing on the edge, and he’d forgotten just how addicting it was.

Ronan could vividly remember the races of his high school days, of Kavinsky’s Evo haunting his rearview - always, forever - a glinting smile that threatened to swallow him whole if he fell behind. He remembered the reckless abandon of taking turns too sharply, of sliding into oncoming traffic, of the second of weightlessness as the wheels lost the road.

He remembered not caring how those races ended. Not really.

He cared, now. He cared if Blue and Henry got arrested. He cared if Gansey would be called down to the station, heart in his throat. He cared if Adam would be pissed about the bail money, if Noah would be pissed he’d been left out of the mayhem.

_Ronan cared._

He wasn’t racing to escape himself anymore. He was racing toward something.

Something that involved five of his best friends. Together.

“Fuck,” he muttered, too low to hear over the engine.

Henry made a small noise, almost lost to the EcoPig, and for a heartstopping second Ronan thought he had somehow heard his thoughts, somehow understood the unsaid, as he so often did. But when he glanced back, it wasn’t giddy joy or a sly, knowing grin that he saw.

Henry was white-knuckling Blue’s headrest with one hand, eyes blown wide as his head swivelled between the speedometer and the old lady somehow still on their tail. He’d jammed himself into the corner, one knee raised to his chest while the other bounced erratically against the back of Blue’s seat. His other hand was held to his mouth, where he was pulling against the thick plastic still wrapped around his thin wrist with his teeth. 

Blue twisted around in her seat to look back at Henry. “You good?”

“I trust Ronan,” he said, voice tight, which didn’t answer the question. 

Small space, darkness, bindings, hurtling down narrow streets at fifty miles per hour as winter slush covered the roads with a mortal enemy named Muriel riding their ass-

Was this a certified Henry Cheng Panic Attack? He’d been around Gansey and Adam for long enough to recognize them, but Henry made a production out of tying his shoelaces. Ronan would have expected hysterical crying, or maybe even screaming, not the silent implosion he could feel happening behind him, slowly sucking all the air out of the car.

“Roll down your window,” Blue ordered, reaching back to do it for him. Wind ricocheted around the interior, buffeting them with frigid air and wet snow. Ronan could see Blue’s hair waving spastically in his peripheral, but he didn’t comment.

“Stick your head out,” he said instead, only half joking as he swerved to avoid a pothole. And then, because that comment seemed too kind when taken on its own; “Maybe you’ll hit a mailbox.”

Henry flipped him off, leaning forward to make sure Ronan saw it. But then Blue pushed him back, and Henry obligingly stuck his head out the window. After a few seconds he closed his eyes, turning to face the wind.

Ronan didn’t mention it, but he didn’t cut the next corner quite so closely on Henry’s side of the car. The mailbox thing would probably show up in a nightmare later, and he didn’t care to see it in real life as well.

They were nearing the edge of town whenHenry started laughing, pulling back inside to smile at them, face red and shining, hair wild and askew. Manic or healed, Ronan couldn’t tell. “Snow stings,” he said, laughing again. “This is great for grounding.” 

“Dumbass,” Ronan muttered as Henry stuck his head back out, this time turning to face back toward their pursuer as he pillowed his head with his arms. “He looks like one of the dogs.” Blue smacked his arm, but he could see the smile tugging at her lips.

Ronan risked a glance to the rearview as he raced through the last light in town, watching as Muriel was forced to slam on her breaks or risk ramming the oncoming traffic. She honked her horn and yelled something out the window, but it was lost to the wind.

Ronan turned one corner. Another.

Open road ahead of them, and no one behind.

He slapped the roof as he eased off the gas. _“Fuck_ yeah!” Henry slapped the side of the car, yelling wordlessly.

Blue rolled her eyes, and Ronan distinctly saw her mutter the word _boys_ underneath her breath, but he could also see the grin on her face.

Henry pulled himself halfway out of the car, leaning his arms on top of the roof and kicking his legs, narrowly missing Ronan’s head with his stupidly colorful shoe. He whooped loudly as Blue grabbed the hem of his jacket and tried to pull him back inside.

“You’re going to hit a mailbox!” she yelled, slapping Henry’s thigh.

“You should have more faith in Lynch’s driving!”

“Yeah, maggot,” Ronan said. “I’m offended.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she growled. “I already had one boyfriend die on me. I don’t want a repeat.”

Henry stopped kicking his legs. “Okay, fair point.” He slid back inside, leaning forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “I got carried away. Sorry.”

“Just don’t be stupid.”

“I’m always stupid.”

“Fair point,” she parroted, kissing his forehead.

“You two are fucking gross,” Ronan said.

“Takes one to know one,” Blue said.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Ronan said, turning down a road he often took during high school, full of dark, winding roads with hilly farms on either side.

“Bite me, Lynch.”

“Not even in my dreams, maggot.”

“Do you dream of us, Bronan?” Henry asked, poking his shoulder.

“Sometimes,” he answered honestly. 

“Kinky.”

“Sometimes.”

Henry laughed, a burst of bubbles full of sunshine. Ronan wondered if he could bottle that sound.

There were no street lamps on this road, which was why Ronan had liked it. It required skill and racing adrenaline to take it at the speeds he had - headlights illuminating turns or trees without proper time to turn the wheel. Deer or raccoons would dart out without warning, requiring masterful handling to avoid both the animal and losing control. 

He’d been baiting death every moment, and he hadn’t consciously realized it.

Now, the road was calming, with darkened fields to either side interspersed with fences and small patches of forest. Small mounds that Ronan recognized as sleeping cows danced on the edges of his high-beams, and he could clearly see a family of deer beside the road ahead, just on the edge of a field. Without speaking, he let the EcoPig coast to a stop, watching the deer watch them. Untouched snow blanketed their surroundings, draping the trees in a thin coat of icy white that was only just beginning to stick to the roads.

He twisted the key, pulling it out.

Silence fell over them.

Several minutes passed as the three of them watched the deer nose at the covered grass before slowly wandering across the road and into a patch of trees, ducking out of sight. Still they sat, listening to each other breathe the cold air, watching snow slowly cover their world.

After a few more minutes, Blue broke the silence. “So was that the grandma I drive like?” she asked. “Because she was kinda badass.”

Ronan snorted. “You wish, Sargent.”

“You have nothing on Muriel, You’d have to drive above the speed limit for that,” Henry added.

“At least I don’t drive ten under,” Blue said, flicking a strand of his soaked hair.

“The term is ‘speed _limit,’_ not ‘speed _minimum.’”_

Ronan rolled his eyes and focused his gaze out the window, watching the snow drift onto the trees. They seemed to reach towards him as he watched, rusting their branches and whispering secrets into his mind, if only he cared to listen.

Cabeswater, calling to him, but Ronan knew it was nothing urgent. He wasn’t Adam, after all.

And this wasn’t a night for that kind of magic.

“So,” Henry said, voice husky and breathless next to his ear. Ronan startled, and Henry leaned back with a grin. “Good date?”

He thought about it. “Nine out of ten, but only because of the car chase.”

“I wish I could take credit for planning that.”

“No orchestrating car chases to woo Lynch,” Blue said.

“You take all the fun out of my plans, Bluejay.”

“Good.”

The trees rustled again, sounding happy to Ronan’s ears. Happy for them. Happy for _him._

Henry leaned back in his seat, resting his head against the open window, snow landing on his reddened cheeks. Shivering.

“We should go,” Blue says into the silence. “Before we get stranded.”

“Before I get hypothermia,” Henry muttered, voice low and sleepy.

He could tell from their voices that they didn’t want to go, that they didn’t want this night to end. He could tell from the way that he fingered the key rather than turning it that he didn’t, either.

But that wasn’t how it worked.

Ronan gripped the key tighter, the grooves tattooing themselves into his palm.

“Henry?” he said quietly, turning to see his soaked, shivering form huddled against the open window. “Next time I’ll dream it bigger.”

Henry grinned, wide and open, and Ronan felt his cheeks flame. 

Blue just rolled her eyes as Ronan turned the key, the EcoPig roaring to life around them. He turned back toward Henrietta. Back toward home.

~%~%~%~

Gansey was waiting for them when they pulled into Monmouth’s parking lot. Arms crossed against his rumpled pajamas, glasses on, hair askew. He stood under the falling snow, dimly lit by the distant street lights, a frown tugging at his lips as Ronan smoothly parked the EcoPig next to Gansey’s Pig.

It reminded Ronan of the time when he was the only one to see Gansey like this, all deconstructed and comfortable. Back when they’d spend the dead hours of the night together, adding to Mini Henrietta or going on a quest for orange juice. 

Gansey had more than Ronan now. The thought was softer under the falling snow, full of potential rather than pity.

“Ganseyman!” Henry yelled, throwing himself out of the car. “Ronan almost got us all arrested.”

Ronan pulled himself out of the EcoPig, shaking out his legs as he scowled at Henry. “I did not. And this whole thing was your idea.”

Gansey frowned at them, his fingers tapping against his bicep. He looked at Ronan in particular, gaze searching. Ronan looked away, toward the light spilling out Monmouth’s windows. 

“You’re bleeding,” Gansey said.

Ronan scrubbed his face with the back of his hand. “Not anymore.”

“I thought you were going stargazing.”

“Inspiration struck,” Henry said. “Plans changed.”

“Care to explain why those plans involved a car chase through town?” The three of them froze under Gansey’s steely gaze. “The police stopped by. Apparently my _very recognizable_ car was seen fleeing the scene of a break in at Aglionby.”

“Ah,” Henry said. “Well.” He cleared his throat, then pointed dramatically. “It was all Ronan’s fault!”

“Thanks,” Ronan said dryly.

“Ronan was depressed,” Blue said. “He only left the house ‘cause we found some dogs he could pet.”

“You know how he loves animals, chaos, and coming within a hair’s breadth of wrecking a car,” Henry added. “It cheered him right up. Much more effective than stargazing.”

“I was fine with stargazing,” Ronan snapped. “Why is this all on me?”

“Because Gansey can’t stay mad at you,” Blue said in a stage whisper.

Gansey ignored her, looking at Ronan with eyebrows raised. Ronan didn’t look back. “You’re feeling better?” he asked. Ronan shrugged. Saying yes would be admitting too much. Gansey softened. “I’m glad.”

“See?” Blue said, still whispering far too loudly. “Not mad.”

“I am too mad!” Gansey said. “You broke into my alma mater and could have been arrested!”

“Doubtful,” Blue said. “All the cops here are too lazy to arrest anyone. Too much paperwork.” Ronan knew Gansey was well aware of that - he’d seen the dozens of speeding tickets plastered to his bedroom door in high school, not to mention the frequent drunk and disorderly calls. Plus, you know, Kavinsky.

“And we did get to pet a bunch of dogs,” Henry said. “And, look! Ronan’s sorta smiling!”

Ronan scowled at him.

“See?”

Gansey laughed, the sound pulling at Ronan’s stomach. “I see.”

“Not mad!” Blue said, leaning forward to poke Gansey’s chest, smiling up at him. Gansey tried not to smile back, but even Ronan could see it was a losing battle.

“Still mad,” he said, holding her at arm’s length. “But also glad everyone made it home in one piece. Honestly, what were you guys thinking?”

“Dogs,” Henry said. “Fluffy. Fun. Also, giving our alma mater hell for all those years of required AP tests.”

“And someone had to keep an eye on these two,” Blue said. “Make sure nothing too crazy happened.”

“Like a car chase?” Ronan asked, smirking at her. She elbowed him roughly, and he grimaced, massaging the area as the other boys winced in sympathy.

Gansey sighed after a moment, running a hand down his face, and then through his hair. “You guys are going to kill me one day.”

“Tried that,” Blue said. “Didn’t stick.”

Gansey snorted. “Just get inside before we all catch pneumonia.”

“I don’t think that’s how pneumonia works,” Blue said.

Gansey hummed, pulling her close, his nose scrunching after a second.

“You smell like wet dog.”

“Oh, baby,” Ronan said, making Henry laugh and Blue flip him off.

Monmouth wrapped them in a blanket of warmth as they stepped inside, and Ronan shivered at the stark temperature difference. He stood inside the door, dripping onto the small indoor mud mat they’d bought on a 2am Walmart trip. 

“We’re going to flood your factory,” Henry said, holding out his arms to show off his soaked clothes. Ronan tried not to notice the way his shirt clung to his stomach, the way his collar bone peeked through, the way he wanted to run his hands through his hair now that it was devoid of product and falling into his face.

“I’ll grab some spare clothes,” Gansey said, pecking Henry on the cheek.

“I already got some.” Ronan could feel himself perk up as Adam came into view at the top of the staircase, pile of clothes in hand. He was barefoot, wearing plaid sweats and one of Ronan’s ratty shirts, the collar slipping off one shoulder. It had a faded cow in a flower crown on it, and Ronan knew he kept wearing it just to tease him for his “cute fashion sense.” “I figured they wouldn’t be prepared for the snow.”

“We can’t all be psychic,” Blue said, easily catching the bundle Adam threw to her.

“Or smart enough to check the weather report,” Adam replied, beaming Henry in the head with his bundle.

“This would have been terrible weather for stargazing,” Gansey mused.

“See? Yet another reason our crime spree was a good idea,” Henry said.

“No,” Gansey said with a flat look. “It really isn’t.”

“Did your psychic-ness think to bring scissors?” Henry asked, holding up his still zip-tied wrist. “I’d really like to get these off.”

Adam raised an eyebrow, gaze shooting to Ronan for answers, but Ronan avoided him, looking to Gansey as he sighed. “Maybe you should think about that next time you do something illegal,” he said. Henry pouted, and it only took Gansey a moment to soften. “I have scissors upstairs.”

Adam stood in front of Ronan, holding out his clothes and trying to meet his eyes, but Ronan determinedly looked over his shoulder. He would see too much, Ronan knew. They both would.

“These are mine,” Adam said after a second. “No one else’s would fit you.”

“Fuckin’ giants,” Blue muttered.

“I’m only five ten,” Adam said. 

“How’s the weather up there?” Henry, only five five, asked with a laugh.

“Warm,” Adam said, raking his eyes over Henry’s shivering form. “Dry.”

“Point.”

“Go get changed,” Gansey said, giving Henry a gentle push toward the stairs. “I’ll make you guys dinner. I assume you haven’t eaten?”

“There was no time for proper nourishment,” Henry said. “There were schools to break into, dogs to be petted, guards to flee.”

“We had gelato,” Blue said. Adam nodded like this was acceptable. Gansey looked aghast.

“Can you even cook?” Ronan asked, squinting at Gansey. The most he’d managed in high school had been scrambled eggs, and those had been dubiously edible at best.

“Of course I can cook,” Gansey said, clearly affronted. Henry stood behind him, partway up the stairs, shaking his head and making a cutting motion across his throat. “Why would you think I can’t cook?”

“We lived off of cereal and Nino’s, man.”

“I’m a different person now,” Gansey said. “I’ve become quite adept in the kitchen. Helen sent me a wonderful recipe for a historically authentic jello salad just last week.”

Ronan gagged. Gansey frowned.

 _I’ll order takeout,_ Henry mouthed as Gansey pushed him farther up the stairs.

 _Not Nino’s,_ Blue mouthed back, turning to follow them.

And then he was alone with Adam.

Normally, he would have been overjoyed. Normally, he would have grabbed Adam’s hand and kissed his knuckles with a smirk, making some asshole remark just to get Adam to laugh.

Normally, he wouldn’t have been avoiding his boyfriend for the past two weeks, to the extent that he’d had to leave the Barns to go stay with Gansey.

Adam grabbed his hand, running his thumb over Ronan’s knuckles, sending shivers dancing across his spine.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said quietly, eyes still trying to meet Ronan’s.

“Okay,” he responded, still looking away.

Adam held his hand the whole way up the stairs, alternating between squeezing it gently and rubbing soothing circles with his thumb. Ronan did the same for him, sometimes, when Adam withdrew into himself. 

“Well well well,” a voice called across the vast space of the loft. “Looks like the traitors finally decided to show up.”

Noah, sitting with his legs splayed across the couch, headphones around his neck and drawing tablet in hand, glared daggers at Henry and Blue. 

“How are we traitors?” Blue asked, moving to peek over his shoulder. 

Noah held the tablet close to his chest, hiding his art from view. “You went on an adventure with Ronan and you didn’t even tell me! I’m not Gansey or Adam, you know. I would have helped.”

“I feel like I should take offense to that,” Adam said as they came to the top of the stairs.

“Don’t,” Gansey said. “It’s a compliment.”

“It definitely isn’t,” Noah said.

Gansey opened his mouth to retort, but Henry beat him to the punch. “I definitely did tell you, though. I sent you, like, eight texts as we were headed to Aglionby. Harmless pranks and dogs are right up your alley, Casper. Where’s your phone?”

Noah blinked, then frantically started patting himself down, digging the phone out of his hoodie pocket. “Oh. It’s super dead.”

“You’re worse than Ronan,” Henry said.

“You take that back!” Noah yelled, brandishing the phone like a weapon.

“Now I feel like _I_ should take offense,” Ronan said.

“You definitely should,” Adam muttered as Noah threw him a look that distinctly said _we’re talking later._ Ronan was just grateful he wasn’t insisting on talking now. This day had been good, but it had also been a lot, and Ronan was starting to feel drained now that the adrenaline was wearing off. Noah seemed to understand that with a glance, and Ronan nodded with a tight smile. _Tomorrow._

Talking came easiest with Noah, probably because it never involved much talking at all. He had never been more grateful.

Adam tugged him across the room as the others started bickering about proper adventuring notification systems. Ronan picked his familiar path through Mini Henrietta as Gansey was trying to explain that, no, carrier pigeons weren’t a very practical messaging system anymore-

Adam pulled Ronan into the room that used to be his own and eased the door halfway closed, muffling the increasingly agitated sounds of another pointless argument. 

Warmth filled every inch of him, thanking God that he was allowed to have this.

Ronan stood out of sight of the living room and shucked off his jacket and shirt, wordlessly drying off using a towel Adam handed him before following suit with his jeans. He saw Adam busying himself with straightening up some clutter on the dresser, but Ronan still felt his skin flush. They had undressed in front of each other countless times before, but it still felt indescribably intimate to Ronan. He was laid bare, flaws and all, open to Adam in a way he didn’t know how to be, otherwise.

Vulnerability had never sat well with him, but he braved it for Adam. He would brave anything for Adam.

Ronan looked at the hardwood floor as he pulled Adam’s PJ pants on, trying to school his face into something calm and collected instead of the blushing beauty Adam turned him into without even trying. He focused on his surroundings, on the half-open door and Blue and Henry in the hallway, arguing about who got to use the bathroom first. He shrugged on the sleeveless black tank - a shirt Opal had chewed several holes into, a shirt that Adam was now eyeing appreciatively.

He focused on the room itself. The room that used to be his own.

It had changed.

It was stupid - Ronan _knew_ it had changed, he’d been the one to pack all his shit away and move it to the Barns when Gansey had started his road trip - but the knowledge sat differently, now. Seeing the bare walls, the uncluttered floor, the sterile comforter. Seeing Adam move to the bed, patting the space beside him and looking up at Ronan imploringly.

This wasn’t his anymore.

It shouldn’t have been Adam’s either. He should have been at the Barns, with him, like they’d planned.

“I’m sorry,” Ronan said, staring at the wall over Adam’s shoulder. Adam leaned forward and grabbed his hand, tugging him down onto the bed beside him.

“Why?”

“You shouldn’t have had to do this. Take Gansey’s charity. If I hadn’t been so fucked in the head for no goddamned reason-”

Adam laid a finger across Ronan’s lips, quieting him instantly. “First,” Adam said, “it’s not charity. It’s friendship, or - something more, I guess, now. I accept it from him, just as I do from you.” Ronan felt a twist in his stomach, even though he knew he’d agreed to this, at the start of it all. Adam was theirs, just as he was his. That didn’t make it hurt any less, didn’t make him not want it for himself. “Second, you have depression. Maybe PTSD. I didn’t stay at Monmouth because you scared me or were too much for me, or whatever bullshit you’re telling yourself. I was trying to give you space.” His eyes darted across Ronan’s face, looking at something unseen, unsaid. Ronan found himself looking back. “I think that may have been wrong.”

A day ago, Ronan would have argued. He would have pushed Adam away, hurting them both in the process so he could be alone to wallow in his own misery. He would have fought any semblance of light or joy pushing into the dark void that had been his mind.

Now, after the Ray of Sunshine and Unstoppable Force that were Cheng and Sargent had forcibly dragged him out of himself, he could kind of see the point.

Like alcohol, like racing, like Kavinsky - being alone was bad for him, even if it felt right.

“Maybe,” he said.

Adam nodded like he understood, and Ronan thought that he probably did.

“Do you want me to come to the Barns with you? For the rest of break?” He moved his hand to cup Ronan’s cheek, calluses rough against Ronan’s skin.

Ronan froze, brain stuttering through images from summer. Adam standing in the kitchen, morning light dapling across his hair. Adam curled up on the couch with Chainsaw, fighting over popcorn as a shitty RomCom played on the TV. Adam with his hands buried in the rich earth, weeding the garden while Opal helpfully ate everything he dug up. 

“It won’t be the same,” he muttered, thinking of the tower of dirty dishes in the sink, the piles of unwashed clothes on his bedroom floor, the overflowing trash bags strewn across the house.

“That’s okay,” Adam said, leaning forward, sky blue eyes all that Ronan could see. “I’d be with you.”

They kissed, then, something warm and soft and deep. Something that had been stewing for weeks, months, ever since Ronan had driven up to Cambridge in a whirlwind of loneliness and passion back in November. Adam had been a birthday present to himself, a way to pretend that he wasn’t abandoned in Henrietta. Now, Adam was a promise that he hadn’t been.

A loud crash echoed from outside the room, and the boys broke apart.

“Sorry!” Gansey called. “The, uh, pot sort of...exploded? Everything is fine, though!”

“There is sauce on the ceiling,” Blue said, voice both awed and horrified.

“It’s alright, Gans,” Henry called from the living room. “I already got Chinese food on the way, fresh from that new place in Charlottesville.”

“They’re driving all the way out here?” Noah asked, voice barely audible.

“They are for a $200 tip.”

“Oh, thanks, Henry,” Gansey said. “Wait, how did you know to order it beforehand-”

Adam giggled, the sound jerking Ronan’s attention back into the room, watching his freckled face scrunch up with mirth. “How mad do you think Gansey would be if I bought him a set of children’s cook books for his birthday?”

“About as mad as when I give him the frying pan I’m gonna dream up that makes it impossible to burn whatever you’re cooking.”

“We’ll make a chef out of him yet.”

“Or at least less of a hazard to himself,” Ronan said.

“And us,” Adam agreed.

Ronan looked to the half-open door, watching Noah lean against Henry on the couch, sharing headphones as they both watched something on Henry’s sleek laptop. He watched Blue stomp out of the kitchen and plop herself down beside them, grabbing the laptop out of Henry’s hands and furiously typing something into it. He watched Gansey slide out after her, wringing his hands as he spoke.

“I can just hire a cleaning crew-”

“This is your mess,” Blue snapped. “You’re going to clean it up.”

“I don’t know how to clean tomato sauce out of wooden rafters-”

Blue pointed at the laptop. “Google.”

“The ceiling is fifteen feet high-”

Blue pointed toward the floor, or to the small supply closet housed downstairs. “Ladder.”

Ronan felt himself loosening as he watched. His muscles became pliant and soft, and his gaze lingered on all of them fitting together like one lopsided puzzle.

He wondered if he would fit, too.

“Oh,” Adam said, looking between him and the others. _“Oh.”_

“It’s not-” Ronan stopped, clearing his throat as he looked down at his feet. “I don’t think I can.”

Adam squeezed his hand. “Why?”

“Because I don’t even deserve you. How can I deserve everyone?”

“That,” Adam said slowly, “is bullshit.” His Henrietta accent was bleeding through slightly, and Ronan jerked his head up, seeing the mix of emotions flickering across Adam’s face - pain, understanding, sadness - before he shut himself down into something more neutral. “Love isn’t something you have to earn,” he said. “It’s something that’s given freely.”

Ronan could tell he didn’t believe it, not fully, not with everything he had lived through in the trailer still held so closely to his heart. But he could also tell that he was _trying_ to believe it, and that he wanted Ronan to, too.

Ronan raised an eyebrow, because he was an asshole. “Your therapist teach you that?”

“Yes.”

Ronan frowned, unable to fight against Adam’s brutal honesty with anything except his own. He knew that, damn him.

“I’m just not...there,” he said after a moment. “Not yet.”

He didn’t know where “there” was, but it probably included being able to pull himself off the couch for more than the occasional piss. It probably included not needing to have friends bully you into the bare minimum of personal hygiene. It probably included being able to admit that he loved all of these assholes more than he loved himself.

“Okay,” Adam said softly. “But we’re here. All of us. Whenever you’re ready.”

Ronan could feel the truth of that statement, and he felt his eyes narrow. “You’ve talked about this. About me.”

“Of course,” Adam said, nudging his shoulder. “We love you, asshole.”

“Oh.” He didn’t say _I love you, too,_ but it was there in the way he cradled Adam’s hand to his chest, in the way he gently kissed his knuckles, in the way he met his sky blue eyes.

 _“Tanquam,”_ he said softly.

 _“Alter idem,”_ Adam answered.

They leaned together, Adam’s head on his shoulder, warm and solid, a promise. _I’m here._ Ronan let his eyes drift closed, breathing in Adam’s dusty scent, overlaid by the mint of Gansey’s shampoo.

He had missed this. He had missed _Adam._

Maybe he should see a therapist, too, if it let him get out of his own head to enjoy this more often. Maybe he’d check out some apartments in Cambridge, instead.

Adam’s hand in his, breathing in sync, bodies flush with one another. Seconds slid into minutes until he lost track of time. He could stay in this moment forever.

_Ding dong._

“Food’s here!” Henry shouted, and Ronan could hear the stampede as he and Noah hurtled themselves down the stairs to retrieve it.

“Should we go?” Adam asked, a quiet murmur against his ear.

“Blue will bitch if I don’t eat,” Ronan muttered back.

“So will I.”

Ronan sighed deeply. “Fuck.” They slowly untangled their limbs and exited the room, Adam moving to help Blue gather plates and utensils while Ronan stole Henry’s seat on the couch.

Gansey sat beside him, holding out his fist and looking at him.

Ronan bumped his fist, looking back.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Gansey said as Henry and Noah climbed back up the stairs, arms laden with brown bags. The savory smells filling the space made Ronan’s mouth water, and he wondered what he’d done to deserve these people.

Nothing, according to Adam. They had chosen him, just like he’d chosen them.

That was better, somehow.

“Me, too.”


End file.
